Rapid Prototyping: Another way

3D printing is amazing. It allows a dreamer to imagine something and have it in physical form hours later. In recent years it has gotten good enough to be used for on demand manufacturing of such sophisticated parts as jet turbine blades.

Well and good but what about your product? 3D printing isn’t the only rapid prototyping available these days. Let’s say you’ve come up with an idea for a new product. You can do samples and focus groups but there is only one way you will know if it is successful. You have to make it in commercial quantities and get it into the marketplace.

Where, despite your best efforts, it is likely to fail. Don’t feel bad, eighty percent of all new consumer goods products do. When it does, you’ve got to be ready to move to your next potential hit as quickly as possible.

The traditional process of come up with an idea, get a budget, buy equipment, get it to market no longer works. It takes too long, for one thing. Idea to market may be 18 months to 2 years. It costs too much in the event of failure. The company winds up with a brand new line that they can’t use.

These 2 factors make companies risk averse and limit the number of products they can try on the way to finding the next hit that will cover the failures.

Suppose you could do the equivalent of rapid prototyping? Suppose you could rent existing machinery, customized to your product and be up and running in 2 months instead of 2 years? This would allow quick development and quick success or failure. If it fails, send the machinery back and try again. If it succeeds, then buy the high speed, high capacity machinery needed to meet demand.

The ability to try 2 (or more) new products per year rather than 1 every 2 years will get you to the hit much more quickly with minimized commitment to the failures.

This ability to try risky ideas with low risk is the essence of rapid prototyping.

At Frain we rent and sell individual machines, complete integrated lines and everything in between. You will be amazed at how quickly we can get your new product into the marketplace. Visit us online at www.Fraingroup.com Better yet, visit our plant in Carol Stream IL, minutes from O’Hare Airport.