Manufacturing Services vs. Contract Manufacturing Services
So you have a great idea that you’ve pitched to a few investors and have backing to produce your product. This is where the rubber meets the road; it’s time to build a line of prototypes or a full production run of your finished product. There’s a good chance you don’t have a full assembly line in your garage, and even if you could produce the product yourself, you likely wouldn’t be able to keep up with the quality and quantity that a full scale manufacturing service can provide.
What is a Manufacturing Service?
A full scale manufacturing service is any business that uses components, parts, or raw materials to make a finished good. Fields involved with manufacturing services range anywhere from pharmaceutical companies to aerospace firms.
These manufacturing businesses use a number of computer programs, robots and manual labor, to ensure they all work as a group to complete the process as quickly as possible. After production, these goods can be either be shipped to you, sold to another business, or even sold to another manufacturing businesses.
Should I Bring My Product to a Manufacturing Service?
If you have a prototype that is ready to go, have done all your homework and can answer, in extreme detail, “am I ready for production,” then yes, a manufacturing service would be right for you. However, if you still have some questions, need prototypes, or want some guidance when it comes to bringing your product from idea to reality, you may want to consider a Contract Manufacturing Service.
What is a Contract Manufacturing Service?
A Contract Manufacturing Service tends to be more flexible than a Manufacturing Service, and allows a designer to fabricate one component of their product, or take a concept and turn it into a reality. These Contract Manufacturing Services may specialize in one service area, or like Pivot International, specialize in a variety of industries, from foodservice to circuit board and electronics manufacturing.
If you just have an idea, Contract Manufacturing can assist with research and development, suggestions for improved design, and assembly material options. Once you’ve worked with this service, they will then complete a full, or partial run, depending on your needs.
So Which is Right For Me?
The answer to this question depends greatly on your product, and the people around you. If you have a tested prototype and a team of well-respected professionals who know your field and the product’s design, a Manufacturing Service could be all you need to get your product off the ground. However, if you need more feedback, are a very small scale operation, or are looking to get a prototype in the hands of potential investors and professionals, a Contract Manufacturing Service may be your best bet.
How Do I Find Out More?
Pivot International can serve both your Manufacturing, and Contract Manufacturing needs. With FDA approval, clean rooms, and ISO:9001 and ISO:13485 certifications, Pivot is ready to handle any manufacturing needs you may have.For more on our product manufacturing services, please click here. click here.
What to Consider When Manufacturing Your Product
So you’ve got your product idea, the design is set, and you’re ready to turn the concept into a reality. What do you do next? If you want to sell your product, you’ll have to get it manufactured. Figuring out how to do that can be overwhelming, which is why we’ve put together this brief guide to help you figure out how to get started.
First, make a prototype.
If you haven’t already done a prototype of your design, you should make sure to complete one before you start looking for manufacturers. Prototypes are vital to a product’s success—they’re the only way for you to really see your design in action, and discern any flaws or usability problems.
There are three routes for prototyping. One is to have a craftsman make a full-scale or scaled model out of real materials. The second is to create a 3D printed model—known as rapid prototyping, this method is faster and can be less expensive, making it appealing for many inventors. And the third is to create a representation of your product using Computer Aided Design (CAD). Although this won’t give you a tangible object, you will be able to have an incredibly detailed model, complete with shadings, markings, and even visual effects to show electronic displays.
Whatever choice you make, use your prototype to really test your design. If you need to go back and fix some things, that’s fine (and even to be expected). It’s a lot better to fix them now than after you’ve ordered 1,000 units of your product.
Second, start researching manufacturers.
Chances are that you won’t be setting up your own factory to manufacture your product (that’s a subject for a whole different blog post, anyway). That means that you’ll be outsourcing production to an existing manufacturer with their own factory, or factories. When selecting a manufacturer, you should absolutely do cost comparisons, as the cost per unit may vary quite a bit depending on which company you choose. And try to visit if possible—not only will this give you a chance to meet the people who will be in charge of creating your product, but it will give you the chance to ask questions. Perhaps there’s a lower-cost, higher-quality alternative material that you hadn’t considered.
If the manufacturer is located across the globe, in China for example, a visit may not be an option. In this case, it’s important to make sure you work closely with whomever is in charge of your account, maintaining open communication as much as possible. Working with a company thousands of miles away can be a challenge for an individual inventor or small business, simply because of the distance between you and the people who are making your product. You may find yourself becoming anxious about potential problems or miscommunications, especially after you’ve put so much time and effort into the product’s development.
That’s why Pivot decided to start offering our own global manufacturing services for people working on bringing their products to market. Whether or not you developed your product with us, you can still take advantage of our expertise to streamline the manufacturing process and remove some of the anxiety associated with creating the first large batch of your brand new product. Pivot also offers electronic manufacturing services, with ISO:9001 and ISO:13485 certified processes.
Consider contract manufacturing.
If this all sounds like more than you want to handle, you should consider contract manufacturing. Pivot offers contract manufacturing services that provide a turnkey option for individuals and businesses. With our global resources, Pivot can offer anything from a prototype to a high-volume product run—and the best part is that we handle all the details. We’ll still work very closely with you throughout the process to make sure that any issues are quickly resolved, and that your product stays on schedule. In fact, on-time delivery, along with reliable quality, is one of the most important elements of our manufacturing services.
Would you like some help with your product manufacturing process? Contact Pivot today!
Should You Outsource Product Manufacturing?
Many businesses consider outsourcing product manufacturing to cut down on manufacturing costs. It can be difficult to know whether to outsource manufacturing, so we’re here to break it down for you.
It is a good idea to consider outsource manufacturing if:
Lowered overhead and manufacturing costs will improve your bottom line
In many cases, the lower overhead and manufacturing costs can save you quite a bit of money, which is good for business in the long run.
It’s easier to establish manufacturing abroad
Ease of establishment can be much easier in countries outside of the United States. Furthermore, when outsourcing, there are often special companies that can help guide you through the entire process and set up operations, including considerations like site selection, build-out, and licensing.
You will be closer to resources
In some cases, outsourcing manufacturing can give you closer proximity to resources needed for manufacturing. Of course, this will depend on what you are producing and the resources needed to produce it. But overall, if there is better access to resources in another country, outsourcing could make sense, helping reduce the cost of production by reducing ancillary shipping costs.
It isn’t a good idea to outsource manufacturing when:
Your manufacturing process is unique and you don’t want to leak the secret to competitors
It might sound far-fetched, but in some cases a unique manufacturing process or secret recipe can give companies a competitive advantage. In this case, you will want to keep your secrets close to home. For example, Coca-Cola would likely never outsource its manufacturing process and risk the security of its recipe. After all, if all soft drink companies knew how to manufacture Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola itself would lose its competitive advantage. There would be nothing distinguishing Coca-Cola’s product from that of its competitors.
It’s too costly
Outsourcing is an excellent way to keep manufacturing costs down. But if outsourcing product manufacturing is going to end up costing more, there is really no point in doing it. It’s critical to consider all of the costs associated with outsourcing, including the expenses and risks associated with finding and managing suppliers, obtaining quotes, negotiating, verifying performance, etc. Labor costs and overhead costs might be lower, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other costs to consider. Before you take the plunge into outsourcing, make sure you’ve analyzed the bottom line.
Pivot International is a product design, development, and manufacturing firm with strengths in software development, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and industrial design. If you are interested in engineering a new product or updating an existing product, contact us at 1-877-206-5001 or request your free consultation today.
Designing for Manufacture
With product development costs taking such a large lump of assigned budget, every design team will be keen on making sure that products are designed right the first time and encompass the original ideals and intent. However, too many products go through the design phase without proper thought as to how it is actually going to be made, and it is very common for finished assemblies to go through at least some level of redesign to enable ease of manufacture, which just piles cost on a product that may already have swallowed a large proportion of allocated resources.
Design For Manufacture (DFM)
Designing with manufacture in mind – otherwise known as Design For Manufacture, or DFM – is an extra skill that evades many engineers, but is essential to ensuring that a new device can be made efficiently and in the most cost-effective manner. Prior to DFM being almost universally adopted, the ethos in the design office was one of “we design something and production builds it,” and almost invariably production or industrial engineering would have the headache of figuring out the best or most cost-effective way of manufacturing the device once fully designed.
DFM turns that thinking on its head and puts production engineers in the design meetings, from concept upwards, with the view to creating a production-ready design from the very beginning. DFM brings certain skills and a down-to-earth attitude that may sometimes be lacking in a design team, and highlights the issues that can be forgotten. Production engineers can advise on many aspects of a new design, including:
The use of formal production processes
The designer may have grandiose ideas of carving parts of their design from solid blocks of steel with a focused laser beam, which sounds exciting but is completely impractical and no doubt hugely expensive. Manufacturing engineers bring things back to a practical level, and point the design team toward common and affordable processes that will be both easy to tool up for and can be grasped by production staff. By using standard production processes such as turning, milling, and drilling, rather than complex and expensive alternatives, manufacturing engineers help determine what is appropriate in regards to actually making a design.
Avoiding slightly asymmetrical parts
There is little more annoying – or costly – than making two slightly different parts instead of one part twice. Avoiding subtle changes in parts will remove the possibility of a product being assembled incorrectly because a production fitter has not noticed the small difference between parts and mis-assembles the device. Only make things different if you have to, and if you do, make sure that they are noticeably different to prevent misunderstandings.
Poka-Yoke
Allied to asymmetry, Poka-Yoke is a concept first fully realised in Japanese industry where a part can only fit in a particular way, preventing mis-assembly. Poka-Yoke relies on some design constraint which will only allow assembly in one way. Household power sockets are designed so that the electrical connectors cannot be reversed, and HDMI computer connectors are shaped so that they can only fit into the corresponding socket one way round. Poka-Yoke is a simple device that ensures parts are assembled in the correct orientation and order, and while it is an immensely powerful tool, it must be planned in at the very start of the design phase to make it completely effective.
Design production tools and fixtures as you go
Rather than creating a new design and producing tools to enable its manufacture, DFM aims to build up specialist tooling as it becomes apparent so there are a full suite of jigs and fixtures by the time the design is complete. This means that prototype production can start almost immediately and the road to full manufacture is foreshortened considerably.
DFM is not only desirable, but essential to making a product that is easy and cost-effective to manufacture. Involving manufacturing engineers right from the outset of a new design will not only reduce costs, but will also shorten time to full production and eliminate almost all of those costly mistakes that eat into profits and credibility.
Pivot International is a product design, development, and manufacturing firm with extensive experience in the medtech industry. If you are interested in engineering a new product or updating an existing product, contact us at 1-877-206-5001 or request your free consultation today.
