Why is prototyping important?

Prototypes can be difficult to produce. The costs can often make them impractical.

Buying into these notions can cost you far more in money and time. Prototyping is the first step in the journey to market, revealing hidden obstacles and unforeseen challenges, and the initial look and feel of the part. Why would you wait until the manufacturing stage to discover problems, when you could have uncovered and solved them earlier at a lot less expensive?

Here are 10 reasons why prototyping makes good business sense.

1. Adjust the design. We already touched on this, but it bears further discussion. On paper or a computer screen, a design’s problems aren’t always noticeable. By creating a prototype, you can actually hold a version of your proposed product and determine what aspects do its job and which ones need refining. This is your chance to gather more accurate requirements and obtain market feedback.

2. Adjust colours, textures and shapes. Now that you can see your product, what would you change to make it more marketable?

3. Provides quality assurance. By testing the prototype, you can find any issues that produces flaws in your product. You can develop quality assurance testing methods and standards before you roll out full production.

4. Measure acceptable tolerance levels. This is your chance to decide if any design adjustments can make the production process more economical.

5. Know the true cost of production. Prototypes help engineers gain insight into the amount of material needed, which helps them to accurately quantify the true cost-per-unit of mass producing their product.

6. Improve the product’s integrity. A prototype lets you test for any structural weaknesses in your product that could affect functionality. You can fix the problem right away and control your costs. It also highlights any design unknowns and avoids downstream discovery

7. Find efficiencies and savings. At this stage, you can take a close look at your processes and see if you can consolidate any production steps to cut down on labour, equipment and raw material costs.

8. Modify your tooling. Once you’ve done your prototype, you may realise that you can make efficiencies by adjusting your tooling and equipment.

9. Make a more durable product. You’re in a position to judge whether you’re using the right fasteners and other components to produce a durable product.

10. Resolve conflicts. If your engineers are in disagreement about the product’s design, prototyping allows them to see which features work best and why. The result optimises the design, giving you the best possible product.

A variety of industries including automotive, construction and electronics regularly manufacture prototypes before beginning to full production. These initial prototypes are often rejected as impractical, difficult to produce, and unmarketable. Mostly, however, prototypes tend to offer new ideas and inspire excitement for moving on to the production stage.