Product Engineering. What They Are and the Value They Bring.

Product engineering is one of the professions and business models that is currently growing the most. The development of IoT technologies and artificial intelligence have brought the attention of entrepreneurs and inventors to new technological needs linked to innovative products.

In recent decades, most startups and entrepreneurs have focused on the development of mobile applications capable of optimizing our daily processes. From buying a plane ticket to finding a partner, these processes have been completely transformed by the great revolution of the digital world.

New technologies in telecommunications, the ability to easily link physical products with virtual environments (IoT), as well as the ability for these products to learn and make decisions, have caused the design of innovative products to become the focus of a large percentage of new startups.

What is meant by product engineering?

Product engineering: Product engineering is the discipline that studies, coordinates, and directs the product creation process.

Product Engineering vs Traditional Engineering

Traditional engineering: Traditional engineering refers to organizations whose main goal is to provide technical solutions to various technical challenges. These are human organizations highly focused on research, calculations, and simulations that demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposed solutions. They tend to specialize in specific areas. For example: structural and calculation engineering, process optimization engineering, among others.

Product engineering: Product engineering refers to organizations fully focused on the design, development, and manufacturing of innovative products. The goal of product engineering is to follow the innovation cycle to achieve the most balanced solutions between the technical and economic feasibility of a product.

Product engineering has the ability to reinvent a product, analyze its future costs, and think outside the box to create products with clear opportunities to compete in the market, both in performance and price.

Best Product Engineering Companies. How to Choose Them?

Within the product engineering industry, there are diverse organizations. What is truly complex is selecting the product engineering company that best fits your needs. Below, we provide some tips that will surely help you choose the partner you truly need:

Intellectual Property and Patent Companies: It is important not to confuse the terms. Registering a patent or protecting the intellectual property of an invention has nothing to do with product engineering.

It is true and at the same time surprising that when searching online for “product engineering,” a list of companies specializing in intellectual property appears.

Starting the product engineering process with a patent company will likely lead you to make common mistakes among inventors. The most serious of all is protecting an idea that: has not been proven to work, let alone optimized at the engineering level, to determine if it will actually be viable.

3D Manufacturing Companies: 3D design, as well as manufacturing through 3D printers for plastic parts or 3D metal printing, are technologies that have enabled significant advances in product engineering.

Many 3D printing manufacturing companies have the ability to create prototypes and test their main functions. In some cases, they are companies with highly competent design departments. For developing simple, purely mechanical products, they can add value to the product engineering process.

Product engineering companies: Product engineering companies are capable of integrating technical disciplines, coordinating them excellently, and thus, producing competitive products in the market.

The main challenge for product engineering companies lies precisely in integrating these disciplines while also designing methods that allow product knowledge to be managed transversally within the organization.

Integration as a key challenge for companies

In the process of developing an innovative product, it is typically required the involvement of a wide range of technical profiles. 

Let’s imagine that the challenge is to create a bracelet capable of identifying when a baseball swing is well executed, or when there are errors in the athlete’s movement that need to be corrected in order to improve their sports performance. 

For the development of this wearable prototype example, we need technical disciplines such as: 

Electronics specialists: Capable of designing an electronic circuit where various components coexist, and also managing peripherals such as: screens, buttons, smart sensors, etc.

Firmware specialists: Capable of programming software whose main function is to control the electronics designed and implemented in the PCB (printed circuit board) that will reside inside the bracelet.

LVGL programming specialists: Depending on the type of screen chosen for the prototype example described, we will need an expert in designing and programming interfaces compatible with wearable devices. These specialists make it possible for the end users of the product to interact with it in a comfortable, efficient, and attractive way.

Machine learning model development specialists: Responsible for verifying the data and creating a data collection strategy. They are in charge of monitoring the quality of the data obtained, as well as cleaning it before starting the model training process. AI model development specialists also program the model, train it, and conduct theoretical tests of its functionality.

Diseñadores industriales: Encargados de gestionar de forma eficiente las partes y componentes necesarios para que el producto funcione. Diseñarán un espacio donde, sin afectar las funciones, se pueda optimizar la disposición de los elementos hardwares que conforman el producto. 

Product designers: These are profiles who know the entire product industrialization cycle from A to Z. They are responsible for making the elements coexist harmoniously to ensure that the product, in addition to functioning, is aesthetic and has market potential.

Product designers are experts in maintaining the balance between the technical and economic viability of a product. They carefully consider important design details, as well as the potential manufacturing costs of the parts and components required for the product.

The integration challenge is set!

In product engineering companies, if there is no clear integration method between disciplines and a hireable expertise, it is unlikely that efficient and competitive products can be achieved. 

Specifically, at Let´s Prototype, we have not only designed this method, but we have also subjected it to quality certifications through the ISO 9001 standards, so that the improvements and optimizations achieved through each experience are documented and audited by specialists in this field.

5 Useful Tips for Choosing Product Engineering Companies

Integration capability in product engineering

When choosing a product engineering company, make sure they have several disciplines integrated within the same laboratory. It is essential to have a method that allows these disciplines to coexist and be managed together. This is a topic that few inventors ask about, and honestly, from the inside, we think it’s crucial.

Experience in product engineering

Make sure they have developed products for the same industry where you intend to innovate. At the very least, the product engineering should have experience developing products that use technologies similar to those required by your product.

Support in future stages

Product development is a process made up of stages. The result of each stage affects the outcomes of the subsequent cycle. For example, if the marketing indicators of the components used in the electronics were not analyzed during the research phase, it should not be surprising that the prototype uses discontinued components, which will require the redesign of part of the circuit. 

In the case of design, if forecasts related to methods for future industrialization are not taken into account, you will likely end up with a prototype that is impossible to industrialize or economically unfeasible.

Prices of product development engineering 

Creating a competitive product is not easy, not cheap, and moreover, it’s a process where you’ll need to take risks. If you don’t start with these premises, it’s unlikely that you’ll make any progress in this cycle. 

To compare the prices of product engineering services, make sure you’re first comparing similar service alternatives. Some product engineering companies still maintain pricing models like they did 20 years ago, with billing systems based on hours or small milestones. In the long run, these tend to be much more costly processes.

 

Do you want to turn your idea into a product?

The time to bring your ideas to life is now. We accompany you throughout the entire process: from idea to product.

 

 

 San Juan Ingenieros, S. L, is the owner of the domain www.letsprototype.com, and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU 1679/2016), we will process your data exclusively to handle your information request. You have the right to rectify or request the deletion of your data at any time via hello@letsprototype.com.

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