Why Skipping NPI Phases Is A Big Mistake [Podcast]

In this episode…

The New Product Introduction process is absolutely central to what we do and provides a solid framework for bringing a product to market ‘the right way’ from concept to mass production. However, SMEs and entrepreneurs sometimes don’t realise the importance of the NPI phases and their Chinese manufacturers would prefer to rush into mass production (so they can ship and get paid) rather than following an NPI process or by skipping some of its key phases. This is a major red flag 🚩 and can lead to all kinds of costly problems later on.

Renaud and Sofeast’s head of NPD (new product development) Andrew revisit the NPI process and explain why skipping its phases is harmful while illustrating the many risks you face if doing so.

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🎧 Andrew Amirnovin | Risks You Face When Skipping New Product Introduction Steps 🎧

Show Sections

Looking back at one of our most popular older episodes about the NPI process

Episode 23: Analysing the (NPI) New Product Introduction Process & its Benefits is one of our all-time most popular episodes, and in it, Renaud went through our 6-phase NPI process for bringing your product from concept through to mass production. This is not a set process, but in general, it provides structure and helps importers approach the process logically. Note, we are focusing our attention on electro-mechanical products, like consumer products, rather than products with special needs such as medical devices.

Today’s focus: The risks of skipping the different NPI phases and rushing into production

Some importers might be tempted to hack together a prototype that is more-or-less OK and go to a Chinese manufacturer who has produced similar products and let them take it and put it into production. There are numerous risks to working like this and skipping the different NPI phases. Next, we look at each phase and why it should not be skipped.

Concept/Idea & Documenting the requirements

You have a concept and goal for what the product will do. You need to create a brief for your designer including customer needs, the environment it will be used in, performance or specific requirements to solve the users’ issues. Include step-by-step guidance on how it is supposed to be operated. This should be in a document.

Risks of skipping documenting your requirements

If you don’t create such a document (product requirement document or PRD) all kinds of problems can happen as your benchmarks on how your product is required to look, work, operate in which environments, etc, just aren’t there and mistakes can be made by the product designer, engineers, assembly line operators, etc, which end up with it not being up to standard because they don’t have a plan. Down the line, quality inspectors will find it hard to do their job as your requirements are unclear to them, too.

Feasibility study/Proof of concept

This phase is very important for new, innovative products (less so for products that are simple and/or already commonly produced). It makes sense to do a feasibility study on a rough prototype (or even more than one to determine which idea is better) to confirm its functionality, how it looks, ease of use, and also get user feedback on it.

Risks of skipping the proof of concept stage

This is probably the most important part of the early product development work because it demonstrates how the product should look and work and confirms if you’re on track with producing it correctly. By skipping it and not validating the products aesthetics, functionality, and suitability for filling the consumer’s needs a manufacturer could end up investing a lot of time and money into starting production on a product that just isn’t fit for purpose or the market.

Sourcing key components and materials early

Choosing the key components to be used in production is important at an early stage of product development before the product is ready for mass production. It can be tempting to start developing a product with components/materials that come to hand locally, but these may not be obtainable in China where your product is finally manufactured.

Risks of not sourcing production materials & components early

Let’s say you go to a Chinese manufacturer with a product that has been made using off-the-shelf components. In this case, they can probably obtain the same in China relatively easily. But if your product’s critical to quality or performance/operation components and materials (like displays, batteries, PVBs) are obsolete or unavailable in China, what then? Production has to be paused, you may even need to redevelop the product to use different ones at great cost in time and money. So it’s important to plan ahead and develop your product using materials/components that you know are available in China so your production can stay on track.

Getting feedback on the design before production

Approving the prototype to go into production involves feedback from consumers to assure that it solves their problems and is desirable, but also from the manufacturing side. ‘Design For X‘ reviews should take place to assess whether the product can be manufactured per your specifications without issues, can be made at the right quality, is reliable, is sustainable, and more.

The risks of not getting feedback & making design changes

Skipping getting someone from production to review the BOM, the production processes proposed, the product design, etc, could result in going to production and the factory reporting back that they just can’t get started. A detailed review of assembly and testing requirements should be done with the manufacturer. This collaboration can influence the product’s design and production process, and tweaks can be made that assure that what goes into production can be made in a straightforward way, will be reliable, reach your quality standard, etc.

A good example would be 3D printing a plastic product enclosure that looks great and going to the manufacturer for mass production only to find out that the enclosure you’ve chosen can’t be injection molded in large quantities, leading to last-minute delays and redesigns that could have been avoided if the manufacturer had reviewed the designs and prototypes.

In-depth testing during pre-production

A full testing procedure that can find all possible quality, safety, and reliability issues that may occur is required as a part of the NPI process. It can be tempting to get a final pre-production sample that the manufacturer has reviewed and can be mass-produced and hurry into production at this point because it seems to be ready (it works, it looks great, it can be made). However, without thorough testing, this is likely to be a mistake.

Risks if testing is skipped

You may end up manufacturing a product that isn’t safe or reliable. Products need to be tested to assure that they can withstand being used in ways they weren’t designed for, abused, used in different environments, and put under stress to see if they can cope. Accelerated lifetime testing, battery testing, environmental testing, drop testing…all of these tests are required to assure reliability in the longer term. There may be many rounds of testing on numerous sample products. Running out of time and rushing into production is often the cause of this being skipped due to the time required, but the result will be reliability issues in the customers’ hands and too many costly returns.

Pilot runs

Samples that have been made by engineers using the same parts off of the tooling as used in mass production have now been tested and validated. Usually, our next step in the NPI process is to perform a pilot run/s to confirm that the assembly lines are ready, the operators are trained, the components are sound, and it’s a final part of the project validation process that helps confirm that the product and production processes are finally ready for mass production. For more complex products a number of pilot runs may be needed, too.

Risks when skipping the pilot run

Even though it is tempting to go into production as we’re almost ready, once a product is in mass production there could be thousands of pieces made only for you to find out that there was an issue with a component or process that has resulted in, say, 50% being defective. This costly risk can be avoided by just putting a small number of samples through production and examining the processes, work instructions, staff, and products to assure that they’re A-OK before giving the go-ahead for mass production.

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