164: The 3 Prototyping Phases for New Product Development

Tim Uys has spent 25 years as a senior design, leader, and lecturer in the industrial design and mechanical design engineering world. He has worked for Nike Golf, Dell, Qualcomm, Ironman and many others while the director of design for IDOne, which was one of the top Austin design firms back in the early days before it was acquired. For the past 8 years, Tim has been the head of design for our very own Mako Design out of our Austin, Texas office. Today Tim is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can understand what each of the key 3 types of prototypes are, the order of those prototypes, and the importance of each of those phases of new product prototyping in order to manufacture a great and successful hardware product. Today you will hear us talk about: Mock Prototype / Rough Prototype Costs are relatively low to iterate and for parts Focus on big picture items, not the details, is key in a first prototype You can even have a series of rough prototypes or prototype parts to test a number of different things Mechanical / Functional Prototype You can do pieces of a prototype either in tandem, or linear,  Mechanical test prototypes use more complex parts, so it requires more advanced prototyping parts so that you can much closer mimic the final production mechanics parts. Even if costly, in the end, you are solving the problem. You cannot go to production without going into proper prototyping. There is a tremendous amount of value in building mechanical features that closely represent the manufactured product, so that you can perfect those mechanical design elements. Refined / Presentation Prototype A final prototype is usually used by hardware startups for selling, but also for manufacturing. Manufacturers need to have the product fully vetted out in order to get a reliable manufacturer to take on the project. Iteration in produce development is very important EPISODE LINKS: Tim Uys Links: LinkedIn | MAKO Design The Product Startup Podcast Links: https://www.ProductStartup.com/ Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube PTC Links: https://www.ptc.com/ OnShape | Creo Mako Design Links: https://www.makodesign.com/ YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter Kevin Mako Links: Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter Partner: PTC’s best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality. Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories.