PRODUCT DESIGN

Keychain Flashlight Product Development

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Background

A competitor to one of Advent Design’s customers introduced a new product that opened an entire new niche for them and threatened to make serious in-roads into our customers strongest market segment. Our customer was caught completely off guard and had not begun any product development in this area. Fortunately the product was a low end consumer electronic device and the technical development was relatively straight forward. The challenge would be to complete the development and purchase the production tooling between early October and late December, then test the product in the field, set-up production, and be ready to introduce the product to the market place at the major annual trade show in mid-January. The company had never developed a product in under a year, and the last development project had gone over a year late and been substantially over any anticipated budget. Initial tooling quotes started at 12 weeks A.R.O.

Solution

Advent Design Corporation was called in to not only perform the Industrial Design and part design, but most importantly to bring our standard product design methodology to bear on this problem. By laying out a clear plan and a clear timetable from the beginning, Advent was able to maintain this schedule and react to new developments in the process. Advent and the customer were able to develop a very successful concept that everyone on the development team could get behind and support in very short order (less than a month). First samples were being tested in the field by the end of November and product was ready for the trade show and product launch later in January. Advent spearheaded this efforts and ensured that everyone on the development from internal resources to vendors knew what was expected and demanded of them every week and when necessary, every day. The customer had never had a development project with such complete communication between all of the major players in the process. Proposing a standard methodology and adapting this process to fit the customers culture and needs allowed us to maximize the probability of success.

Implementation/Impact

Advent’s effort resulted in a timely release of this product. The product has gone on to be the single largest seller for this customer and spawned two spin-of products that have also been successful. The product is recognized as their product nationally as well as internationally and received coverage in the mainstream media as well as their industry press. Advent’s customer’s product is now considered the “standard” product that others compare themselves to and not to the competitor that reached the market a few months earlier. As a result of this successful effort the customer adopted this standard methodology for their company and a year or so later invited Advent Design Corporation to head-up all of their development projects. This customer is now introducing between 6 and 8 new products a year and for the first time ever has begun to develop a plan for their entire product line.