Six Often Overlooked Links in a Supply Chain

October 5, 2021 by Zac Marton

1. The Suppliers of Your Supplier
Physically inspecting the source of components and materials that your manufacturer uses is very important. Never assume the best. Companies will try to cut corners to save money, so they need to be held accountable and closely watched to ensure that quality never diminishes.

2. Customs
Customs holds have caused many missed deadlines. Before making any shipment make sure to look into what type of goods can cause a hold by the customs department of both the shipping and receiving country. If you are worried that your shipment may experience a customs hold, contact a government agent for clarity.

3. Choice of Shipping Service
Cost is not the only factor when considering the shipping service to use for your goods and materials. It is important to develop a relationship with a representative at your preferred company so that you get optimal service and have a person at the ready to contact if any issues arise during the shipment.

4. Factory Cleanliness
A dirty factory is indicative that corners are cut in other places of the business. It may seem like a small thing but being clean and organized is something that should be insisted on for everybody in your supply chain.

5. Holidays, Disasters, and Shutdowns
Keep track of all federal holidays in the countries you operate in. These non-working days need to be accounted for when creating logistics timelines. More unforeseen events such as natural disasters and government shutdowns, such as recent Covid lockdowns, can also add additional days to shipping time.

6. Utilize Technology
Avoid employees performing monotonous tasks that could be instead done digitally. This will reduce human error and allow your workers to spend their time elsewhere. Innovative technology and software can automate tasks such as label creation, tracking, and inventory management.

How Do I Turn My Idea Into A Million Dollar Product? (Part 1)

November 29, 2021December 8, 2020 by Ondrian Yeung

10 Steps for Product Development Success

Daily life is filled with nuances and problems, leading many people to seek out more efficient solutions and create ingenious product ideas. You might be that person that has a fantastic idea, but what comes next? Although it can be overwhelming, here are five steps to get you started on the product development process and give you an idea of what to expect along the way.

1. There is Always Room for Improvement – Research, Improve, Repeat

When you have an innovative product idea, the first thing to do is write EVERYTHING down. Putting your thoughts on paper allows you to thoroughly analyze the product’s strengths and weaknesses and determine what possible additions you can make to make the product even better. It is best to develop a concrete concept that thoroughly explains your product and its purpose. Once you have fully developed a product idea, make sure you research it to understand all of the information necessary to create it. Research is key to creating a groundbreaking product. Before you go all-in on this product, you want to be sure that no one else has developed this product, patented the idea, and that this is something consumers need to succeed in the market.

One of the most common reasons why new products fail is that they are not needed. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help determine if your idea will be a successful product:

Is this product useful or enticing?
Is there a large market for this product? A niche community may want your product, but will catering to this market segment be enough to remain profitable and thrive in the long run?
Will this product still matter in 5 years?
Are there similar products already on the market that will act as a substitute?

You don’t want to end up with a well-developed product to find out that your product belongs to a small niche market or that your product is not interesting enough to be purchased. Do your research and be honest with yourself about your idea.

2. Bring Your Product to Life Digitally!

After establishing and researching your product idea, create an STP design file for your product. An STP File is a 3D assembly file supported by various mechanical design programs that shows all of the exterior and interior components that make up a product. The design file is extremely important as it allows people to evaluate your product and better understand how the product functions. If you do not have an engineering background, it is best to hire an engineer to assist you with this stage of the product development process. An engineer can create the STP File while providing feedback to guarantee your product is functional and consumer-friendly.

When developing a product, its design’s functionality and features play a significant role when determining if it is consumer-friendly and enticing. Here are a few things to consider when designing your product to ensure its success:

Is there a trigger for the product? The trigger is the reason why a user will go to the product. Learn and understand what motivates your target user and build your design to support the trigger.
What is the action necessary to use the product? The action is the behavior performed to reap the reward for using the product. Is the action convenient and simple for the user?
What is the reward of using the product? The reward is the benefit the user gets from using the product. Is the reward worth the action?
Is there investment for future repeat or use of the product? The investment is a seed planted that causes the user to utilize the product in the future. Will the product solve a problem the user has and trigger them to use your product again?

Image Source: UX Collective

You want your product to flow through this process to ensure that it is consumer-friendly and straightforward for customers to use frequently. When customers keep using your product and its features, you have the best chance at establishing customer loyalty, a repeat purchase, and positive word of mouth promotion about your product.

3. Prototype Development and Signing an NDA

After developing the design file for your product, it is time to create a functional prototype. If you don’t have an engineering or manufacturing background, you should contact a professional manufacturing company that makes prototypes and products to assist you with this part of the process.

Choosing the right company to work with is crucial because you need confidence that they want the best for you and your product. When meeting with companies, it is necessary to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before sending over your design files. Signing an NDA ensures that you are protected and that the company will not disclose any information regarding your product or idea.

When you determine the company you want to work with, you will begin the prototype development stage. Here is what to expect during this process:

Most products average 3-6 prototypes. It is doubtful that the first prototype will work correctly and be precisely what you want.
The process can be costly. On average, people spend a couple of thousand dollars to create multiple prototypes.
Creating a reliable product can take weeks or even months.

Remember that patience is vital for product development. The prototype development stage is often longer than most product creators expect. It always pays off to launch a fully developed product that consumers will love.

4. Perfecting the Prototype

Perfecting a prototype comes from trial and error plus feedback. If you work with professional engineers and account managers, they will study the design and product to help develop the best prototype possible. Since professionals and account managers have had their fair share in product development, they may know a feature or two that can further enhance your product. Their expertise can take your design to the next level by:

Making the product more marketable
Determining the optimal weight and size of the product
Finding favorable materials to use for mass production. Sourcing the right materials involves many factors, including availability, cost, quality, and durability.
Introducing technology that you may not have been aware of

While working with a professional team, you should also test your product with potential customers. Having your potential customer base try your product or conducting a focus group with them gives you useful criticism and guarantees an actual need for your product.

5. Gaining Funding and Creating an Online Presence

Gaining funding is an ongoing process that should begin throughout the prototype development process. Product development is often expensive, which is why it is smart to have investors and funding. When a product has financing, there is no need to skimp on quality or halt production because of a lack of funds. You want to release the best product possible to see success on the market with high demand.

Ways to gain funding include:

Crowdfunding sites
Investors
Loans

Another essential ongoing process is establishing an online presence and garnering social media attention during development, which leads to early sales success. Establishing an online presence can include crowdfunding campaigns, having influencers in the industry review your product or prototype, social media paid advertising, and more.

Takeaways:

A common mistake that product developers make is rushing to put out a product because they promised investors and potential clients a finished product by a specific date. You never want to send out or sell a product that is not finished or of low quality because it often leads to bad reviews.

Be prepared to face challenges, make many changes, and be patient as you work hard to make your idea come to life. If you have a great idea that will disrupt the market and help people, you can count on it being worthwhile to develop.

Once you are ready to begin the product development process, reach out to Esino USA to bring your product to life with one of our account managers. Esino is your one-stop-shop for all of your product development needs!

Stay Tuned for Developing a Product – Part 2

Getting Manufacturing Quote
Clinical Testing
Create Molds for Injection Molding
Start Production
Bringing your Product to Market

Tooling: The Logical Solution to Manufacturing YOUR Product

November 29, 2021December 1, 2020 by Ondrian Yeung

Tooling: The Logical Solution to Manufacturing YOUR Product

What is Tooling, and How is it Applied

Tooling, short for machine tooling, is an essential part of most manufacturing processes. You can get a good idea of how tooling works by picturing a garlic press and how it facilitates the process by finely mincing each garlic clove. Just as the press minces your garlic cloves, tooling machines help you manufacture your products. Of course, there are other ways to create your products, just as there are other ways to mince garlic, but they aren’t made to perform the specific tasks needed to produce your product.

How Tooling can Drastically Increase Manufacturing Speeds and Improve Product Quality

Tooling creates unique tools or machines that make your product. These tools are tailored to the specific needs that your product requires and perform actions necessary in each step to mass produce your product. Though it does require time and monetary investment to initially set up the process, the benefits of tooling are tremendous. Once the process is in place, your product moves swiftly through each station until each component forms the whole. In the long run, you save a significant amount of time and money in the production process.

Types of Tooling

There are many types of tooling machines, one of the most prominent being Injection Molding. Other common types of tooling include but are not limited to cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, and assembling. Machines such as the automatic screw machine are also used to facilitate assembly. Depending on your manufacturing needs, different machines are organized into a system to create an automated assembly line to manufacture your product. Tooling is also widely used in packaging, where automatic sealing, cutting, heat shrink, and box sealing machines come into play. They drastically reduce the time that it takes to pack each product manually.

Advantages:

Speed: Machine tooling is an extremely fast method to produce large quantities of your product once the process is configured.
Precision: Precision is guaranteed since the machine is fine-tuned to execute the most specific tasks.
Quality: Consistent quality through every cycle is a major advantage of tooling.

Disadvantages:

High Upfront Cost: Very high upfront cost if you are looking to set up your own machine tooling to manufacture your products. Luckily, many companies specialize in machine tooling, so you can contract a company to manufacture for you.
For Large Operations: Tooling is geared for bulk manufacturing operations.

Determining if Your Business Needs Tooling Services

If your business has a high output of products, it may be a good idea to explore tooling options. Your two choices would be to perform tooling in-house or outsource to a manufacturer that can take care of the tooling process and manufacture your products for you.

If your business conducts its manufacturing in-house and has large quantities of output, you may want to consider tooling and implementing systems if you have not already done so. Because your manufacturing is already in-house, the next step is to optimize your system. Tooling becomes more effective as you produce more, so calculate how many units you need to produce for the initial tooling costs to balance out with the costs of producing units without tooling. Once you find this breakeven point, you can evaluate if it is logical to consider tooling.

If your business needs tooling services, but it is not feasible or too expensive to set up in-house tooling, it may be a better choice to look for a manufacturer that offers tooling to manufacture your products for you. This drastically reduces the initial cost of tooling and makes it possible for you to reap the same benefits without such a heavy investment. If you are looking for a manufacturing service that incorporates tooling, Esino is highly skilled in the field. We help many businesses take care of their manufacturing needs whether they require injection molding, assembly, screw fastening, packaging, and much more!

How Esino can Help Fulfill Your Product Development Needs

When trying to develop a product, Esino is your one-stop-shop. Our services include product design, prototyping, manufacturing, tooling, and repair services. We have a strong history with over 10 years of experience helping startups and creative entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful products. We work hard to achieve the moment where our clients’ eyes light up when they see their product come to life. Take a look at a few of our past projects here!

Injection Molding: The KEY to cost-effective manufacturing and quick turnaround times

August 25, 2021November 16, 2020 by Ondrian Yeung

Injection Molding: The KEY to cost-effective manufacturing and quick turnaround times

When developing a product, it is essential to learn about the top manufacturing processes, one being injection molding. The injection molding process has grown to be one of the most efficient and cost-effective manufacturing processes because of its ability to quickly produce a large volume of identical parts. Injection molding allows for the flexibility of various shapes and sizes, resulting in a significant proportion of plastic products created in a short amount of time.

How the injection molding process works

The injection molding process begins by feeding plastic material granules into a heated barrel. The plastic granules are melted down and mixed with a helical shaped screw. The screw then injects the melted plastic into a custom mold cavity created for each product. The plastic is left to cool and harden to the mold’s configuration. Once solidified, the piece is placed on a moveable platen and removed from the machine. The process is now complete and begins to repeat to produce more parts.

Image Source: Prototech Asia

Advantages of injection molding

Speed: Each cycle is completed in about 15-30 seconds.
Low labor costs: This process uses an automatic tool that can produce your parts with little to no labor on top of the production.
Low production cost: Using and creating a mold that minimizes materials and produces multiple parts results in a lower price per piece.
Low waste: There is little waste created because the mold is made custom to each part, and most products are recyclable.
Design flexibility: These molds are the most versatile and flexible because they can create almost any shape in one piece.
Number of cycles per mold: Each custom mold can complete about 100,000 to 1 million cycles depending on the quality, maintenance, and conditions your mold is under.

Are there disadvantages?

High upfront cost: The high initial cost to create an injection mold can be a barrier to entry. On average, a mold can cost $12,000, but for smaller pieces, molds can range between $1,000 and $5,000, and for more extensive, it can cost up to $80,000. However, once this cost is covered, there are little costs to continue making the product.
Part redesign restrictions: If you need to make a few changes to your parts, you will need to create a whole new injection tooling mold. To combat this problem, work with our team using our 3D printers to perfect your prototype, and ensure this does not happen.

Where to go for injection molding?

When choosing a company for manufacturing services such as injection molding, you should find a highly experienced company with a strong history in developing products that require similar expertise as the product you are trying to create. When you narrow down to your final choices, make sure you ask for case study samples of past projects or physical samples so that you can assess the quality of production.