curious about electronics manufacturing process

Unless your plan involves going broke as the finale you'd better include a lot of prototypes and market testing in there right near the start.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I understand that you are talking about product development.

There are two or three books that I have found in the regional library nearby my place concerning with this.

Starting a new venture, developing, selling product and making money is not so easy as it seems to be.

You might need a lot of experience with that:- you might need to join an typical SME and spend at least three years to understand well, I think.

I might be wrong cuz I am too young in the professional field but I am just sharing what I know cuz I would like to start my own business some day, which is my mian focus of studying things these days.

Regards

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Selling, Selling and yet MORE Selling:

You will need an ocean of money - to get that you will need to write a business plan and sell it to the bank or venture fund.

If you have a somewhat working prototype it is easier to sell - even if it is hardcoded in Java on a mobile phone and does nothing at all except VISUALISE the idea: A colleague sold a distributed sensor research project with a "radar display" with green (our guys) and red (intruders) running on a mobile phone!

If you are inside a business, it is the same show: one has to find a sponsor in competition with everyone else & dog so your project has to look like the next Google with no risk.

Good - but down to the level of explaining "why would want this"

Parasites and Useless, respectively.

In general it is better not to hire anyone but to outsource instead - you then pay per-unit instead of paying fixed expenses to bank loans and employees. That way it is not so much your problem if the product does not sell or there are dead months. Keep the core knowledge in-house and the rest on a pay-per-hour.

The design consultant will know the right people if he/she is any good!

Hello Frithiof Andreas and Michael,

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But be honest about the risks. I have done a lot of this "selling" via proposal writing. Sometimes companies or VCs turned them down based on risks outlined in there but I'd rather have that happen than being dishonest by playing down the risks. After all, when you take their money you are as much responsible for using it properly as you are when running a shareholder owned company. IOW, it's not your money. It gives me the goose pimples when I read the usual "Superdupergizmo Inc. won $5M in A round". IMHO this has nothing to do with winning money, it's a seed and the folks who fork it over expect a substantial return. And they should.

Plus how many of there are, how much is willing to fork over per unit and, most of all, how you arrived at those numbers.

Initially, yes, but make sure the consultants are dedicated and trustworthy. And paid on time, else their dedication factor will dwindle fast.

Industrial designers.

Absolutely.

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How is this research usually done? (Somehow I don't think they stand in the mall, asking people to fill out surveys...)

Cold-calling people to answer a few questions by phone survey?

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Does 'design consultant' = 'industrial designer'?

Thanks,

Michael

Hello Michael,

This can become one of the more expensive parts of the project and it's coming out of your own pocket. I can only speak for the medical electronics world and there this phase is really expensive: Teams from consulting companies actually might do such surveys, hospital by hospital. Lots of travel $$. Other times you can buy reports from them if you are going into a market that is already served by others. Those reports can cost more than a luxury car.

Then you often need statements from "luminaries" that are widely regarded as experts.

I have never heard someone being called design consultant. An industrial design house is the place where they can develop an appealing enclosure and also provide fabrication drawings in AutoCAD, SolidWorks etc. They should also be able to create prototypes.

...

Oh neato. I found these guys (after finding nothing in the Valley Yellow Pages):

Come to think of it... wasn't it an Industrial Design firm that the inventors in the show American Inventor worked with, to create prototypes...?

Michael

Hello Michael,

No idea, I don't watch much TV. We usually select an industrial design firm that is close to the client and that specializes in the task at hand. Injection molding, metal, plastic bezels, whatever the product needs.

The most unusual designer I have worked with on an electronics product was a true artist. His mainstream biz was actually clothes design. It was a rather delicate balancing act to bring EMI concerns into the discussion :-)

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pay-per-hour.

Probably - me poor english!

I was actually thinking about the rare combo of artistic and hardnosed people that can give the product a beautiful shape yet still know how it can be manufactured, by whom, and what a budget means.