Product Launch Formula

Developing and launching a product can be stressful - there are many decisions, problems to overcome, and risks to mitigate. While we’d like the process to go smoothly and be able to calmly meet deadlines, this usually is not the case - things we didn’t consider pop up or things that shouldn’t have been a problem become a problem.
Many of the decisions, problems, and risks are associated with the materials used in a product. After all, a product is ultimately an assembly of materials that have been shaped, manipulated, and modified. So, making the effort to engineer the materials will have an impact on product cost, performance, and reliability, and on manufacturing throughput and quality.
We can make decisions and get information about the materials that will reduce problems and reduce risks, improve the likelihood of smoother product development and launch, and help ensure the success of a product. The rest of this article discusses different aspects of product development, product launch, and post-launch where materials engineering will improve product success.
Product development materials considerations
The decisions during product development that involve the materials used in a product include:
Component design
Supplier selection
Product testing
Fabrication and assembly process development
For component design, the materials selected have a big impact on component performance, reliability, and cost. And that's just not just in terms of the cost of the materials used in the components. It's also from a design for manufacturing perspective. The easier it is to fabricate components out of a particular material, the lower the cost will be to fabricate the component.
With supplier selection, verify that suppliers are capable of consistently producing materials and components that meet performance and reliability requirements. It would seem this is a given, but apparently it is not. Suppliers are often selected based on cost, and the hope that things work out. When evaluating suppliers, verify that the properties, composition, and microstructure of samples meet requirements. Evaluating only properties is not good enough. It’s possible to meet properties specifications and still have composition or microstructure deficiencies that lead to performance or reliability problems. Finally, make sure suppliers have the technical capability to deal with quality problems.
For product testing, verify that the materials being tested meet requirements. It's a problem if the materials being tested don't meet their properties, composition, and microstructure specifications. This can lead to false failures or false passing, and wrong decisions made based on bad data. Verify that materials meet specifications and are metallurgically sound prior to building and testing a product.
Finally, fabrication and assembly process development involves selection of input materials, processes, and process parameters to fabricate components and form joints between components. These decisions influence two things. First, they influence the properties and microstructure of components and joints, which affects whether they have the desired performance and reliability for the product to function as expected. Second, they influence how the materials behave during fabrication and assembly, impacting ease of fabrication and assembly and the quality of the output, which impacts production throughput and cost.
More details about product launch formula
Future articles, podcasts, and videos will go into more details about the individual aspects of product development and production discussed here and how materials can be engineered to improve the chances of making sound decisions that enable successful products and lower-stress efforts.
To learn more about product development, launch, and improvement from the materials engineering perspective check out
www.imetllc.co...
podcasters.spo...