The challenges of new product development
Tim Hughes
Husband, Father, Grandfather, Engineer, Innovator, Safety Practitioner, Entrepreneur, Guitar Strummer, Motorcyclist, ex-Trials Rider, Founder of Total Lockout (Safety) Ltd, Total Lockout (Safety) LLC and EINTAC Ltd
We spent some time Friday assembling the first batch of final moulded parts that go together to make our new needle valve lockout.
New product development can be a rewarding but tortuous journey. This project has been on the go for nearly 2 years but could have been much less. From the outset we were going to incorporate a lock cylinder from an established manufacturer. A cylinder from Lowe & Fletcher seemed to fit the bill and we committed to tooling in June 2018. The first prototype went together very well, so we decided to order up another 10 cylinders, enabling us to build more models for testing. Imagine our horror to be told that the chosen L&F cylinder was now discontinued. It probably took a month of searching around the world to see if we could source some end of line stock from a distributor; all to no avail.
With a heavy heart we realised we would need to find a new cylinder (and establish any planned obsolescence), before carrying out design changes and sanctioning tooling modifications.
Six months on, the project is nearly finished and sporting a great new radial pin tumbler cylinder from Camlock. With the benefit of hindsight, this snag has probably resulted in the finished product being superior in terms of specification.
Lesson learned: check for obsolescence when integrating products from suppliers.
More on this product when we launch officially in April 2019.
Product Manager for Good to Go Safety, Caledonia Signs & TakeAIM
5 年I feel your pain Tim - obsolescence is the bane of a product managers life. Thankfully we have control of most items that we produce in-house but when you launch a new catalogue and get told a few weeks later that a supplier has gone under or discontinued something featured in your catalogue it is a royal pain in the you know what. Glad you got it resolved and fingers crossed it proves a popular addition to the range - I'm sure it will be a great quality product as per usual.