If your business creates its own products, then you will understand the importance of being able to create these items quickly.
The faster you can create a product, the easier you will be able to keep up with demand, the more efficient you can make your production processes, and the faster your business can grow.
Of course, being able to create products quickly also means you can be more agile with changing market trends. This is a vastly underrated attribute in business because as consumers change their buying habits, companies need to be able to adapt instantly or risk perishing.
It is for this reason that so many large corporations with reliable customer bases suddenly find themselves bankrupt in a matter of years (or even months) because they are too large to remain agile. They can’t adapt fast enough, so they lose market share to smaller businesses that can create new products faster.
Naturally, creating a new product quickly isn’t easy. You will need to explore several different production tools, methods, and products themselves before you hit upon a sweet spot.
To help you find the right approach, here are some useful tips:
Use additive printing methods
If you want to be able to improve the speed of your production processes, then you need to ensure that the tooling you use is as efficient as it can be.
Therefore, you should consider using additive manufacturing methods, better known as 3D printing. It is already used in a wide array of industries – from aerospace to healthcare, automotive to robotics.
The reason why additive printing is so popular is that the whole process is relatively seamless.
The product design can be drawn up using CAD and then instantly sent to the 3D printing system, which can produce a prototype on-demand.
What makes additive printing even more useful is that the tooling is incredibly accurate. In fact, 3D printing is often turned to first if a particularly intricate design needs to be created. If you have noticed that many cars suddenly have incredibly intricate grill details, for example, then they have probably been 3D printed.
Don’t design by committee
The slow death of many large companies begins when they start designing products by committee.
This is when designs are brought to a team in a meeting, and everyone is allowed to have an equal say, inputting their specific ideas regardless of the overarching approach.
The reason why this happens so often is that large companies have more to lose from a bad design. Therefore, they want to have as many experienced people involved in the project as possible to ensure it is a success.
Unfortunately, design – much like art – requires a dictatorship. This means that the original idea must stem from one person (or at least a small team), who will find it easier to create a coherent design quickly.
Therefore, assign a new product plan to a particular designer and allow them to get to work without disturbance. It will allow the design and production process to move along far quicker and usually result in a better product.
Have existing production processes in place first
Of course, unless your new product is taking your business off in a whole new direction, it is important to have a standardized production process in place first.
This will make it easier to implement an efficient production line and lower the costs of buying new tooling or hiring more staff to create the product.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
