What are the best practices for rapid prototyping to ensure ease of manufacturing and assembly?

Clearly outline your goals and requirements for the prototype, considering factors such as functionality, level of detail, and user feedback. This ensures alignment with your project's objectives and informs the selection of the most suitable prototyping technique.

There are 4 main categories of prototyping to consider that will inform the right prototyping technique: 1. Rapid (throwaway) prototyping is for getting quick user feedback. Think paper napkin sketches for ideating. 2. Evolutionary prototyping can be evolved by adding features and functions but the very initial prototype is enough to demonstrate use. Think software programs to demonstrate an MVP. 3. Incremental prototypes are many small separate prototypes built in parallel and refined separately. Think screen development where user interactions and screen flow are paramount for usability. 4. Extreme prototyping is where the user interface is designed and developed before any of the underlying technology is implemented.

Identify the key features and functionalities that are essential to add value to users and focus your prototyping efforts on creating and validating these elements. Being clear that the objective of the prototype is fundamental to success. The end goal is different from features. Prove your product with purpose, an MVP, and this will help you identify improvements, prove the need for features, and help you quickly evolve versions from prototype to a well-tested first version. Always be open to changes.

Before thinking about practices, it is imperative to decide on the rapid prototyping technology to be used. This depends on the purpose for which you want to build the prototype. If the aim is to have a functional prototype and the product to be developed is mechanical, then you should go for equipment that has some metal powder as a consumable (selective laser sintering). If the aim is to have a non-functional prototype (or a functional one for packaging, for example), you can use a more economical technology, such as fused material deposition (FDM) or laminated paper (LOM). This prototype will certainly give the development team more confidence in proposing suitable solutions for the production and assembly of the new product.

Before you build a prototype, write down the risks that you are trying to address/resolve with your prototype. Rank order the risks, if any risk in your list has multiple solutions that you are confident about resolving, it is not a major risk. Identify your top most risk (one or two) that is core to proving your product idea feasibility, then build a simplest prototype to de-risk it rapidly (it does not have to look like your proposed product)... if you are successful, then build a prototype that is visually appealing to wider audience (including non-technical), otherwise, no big deal, iterate your idea based on your learnings.

Identify the core features and functionalities essential for delivering value to your users and focus your prototyping efforts on building and validating these elements.

Apart from simplifying, it would also be useful to break down the parameters/ function to be prototyped. Working on one at a time will make it easy to test and even evolve a Working model

Opt for off-the-shelf hardware and components that are widely available and compatible with your prototyping technique. This reduces the need for custom fabrication or modification, streamlining assembly processes and minimizing production costs.

Prototyping is usually done with a mindset to test whether a hypothesis or a design will work or not. In the innovation space, it is essential to prototype with a mindset of evolving a working model. Often it is worthwhile to strengthen what is working rather than aiming to plug what is not working - as long as it is not the most critical function or parameter of the purpose.