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“What do you do?”

We get asked that question almost daily. The simple answer to that question is, we partner with our clients to design and develop their products, but the real answer to that question is much more complex.  We work with our clients in whatever capacity necessary to help them design and develop their products.  Our number one goal, is to help our clients.  If we’re not filling a specific need for our clients and helping them, we shouldn’t be working with them.  Sometimes we’re an additional CAD designer when they’re struggling with capacity issues.  Sometimes, when they’re frustrated with a lack of new ideas, we’re asked to generate additional ideas for a product or portion of a product.   At other times, we’re and integral part of their product development team.   Many times it’s somewhere in between those extremes. We work with our clients in so many different capacities it’s hard to define exactly what we do.

But isn’t the better question to ask, “What do I need?”  It’s not about what we do.  It’s about what you need.  Once you determine what it is you need – what challenge, problem, or issue you’re trying to resolve, you and we will be able to determine if Impulse is a fit for your company.  The following list identifies specific product development problems that we have helped our clients solve.  Does reading through the list bring to mind any challenges you’re having?  If not, Impulse may not be a fit for you. If so, contact us and have a conversation to see if Impulse might be able to help.

DESIGN / INNOVATION

• We’re always chasing the competition; reacting to them instead of the market.
• We don’t innovate.  We just follow the competition.
• We don’t develop new products because our existing product line does so well.
• We don’t develop new products because we don’t have the expertise.
• Our products aren’t fresh, lack style, and don’t stand out in the marketplace.
• Our products are uncomfortable or difficult to use.
• Our products look and feel outdated.
• We don’t generate enough product ideas.

ENGINEERING

• We’re constantly struggling with product cost.
• Our products are difficult to assemble or cost more to assemble than they should.
• Our product costs are too high as a result of poor material utilization.
• We don’t develop and test our mechanisms virtually before testing them physically.

RESOURCES

• We could bring more products to market if we had more design/engineering resources.
• We struggle with capacity issues.
• We don’t explore the task of cost reducing our existing products because we don’t have the resources.
• We could gain a higher margin if we had the resources to cost reduce our existing products.
• We often lose time because the members of our product development team are required to accomplish tasks outside of their core competencies.

TIMING

• Getting products designed on time is always a challenge.
• We lose market share because it takes too long to design, prototype, and/or manufacture our products.
• Sometimes the timeline of our product development process is compromised because we don’t have enough design/engineering resources.
• Sometimes a product’s timeline is affected because of our vendors.
• We could bring more products to market if we could reduce the time our products spend in the design phase.
• Our timelines are often compromised because it takes too many iterations to define a mechanism.

PROTOTYPING

• We build more prototypes than necessary to prove out a mechanism.
• We often make too many tooling revisions because we didn’t fully test the product before releasing for tooling.
• We have trouble evaluating designs because our prototypes are never functional.
• Our prototypes usually break before we complete all of the necessary testing.
• Our prototypes never survive long enough for us to get the maximum use out of them.
• When using prototypes to present product designs, we spend a lot of time explaining what’s missing on the prototype (function, color, material characteristics, etc..) instead of discussing the product itself.
• We could get more use out of our prototypes if we could get them made from more production-like materials.

SOURCING

• Tooling revisions are often extensive and time consuming because we didn’t catch and address issues before releasing tooling.
• Tooling revisions often cause us to miss product launch dates.
• Our vendors control our component and product costs because we don’t have any other options.
• We don’t produce as many products as we could because we’ve maximized the manufacturing capacity of our vendors.

Impulse Product Development is a team of experienced engineers and experts that specialize in new product development, industrial and conceptual design, engineering, CAD technologies, rapid and virtual prototyping, contract manufacturing and management and reverse engineering. Centrally-headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, Impulse serves clients across the country.