Start ups are always trying to be innovative, but the resource and expertise trade off can be difficult.  Check out Flashpoint Development’s Managing Partner Tucker Marion’s recent speaking slides during his trip to England.  The talk shows how you can utilize agile, rapid prototyping and other new tools to outsource innovation and accomplish your start-up goals with less resources.

Outsourcing Innovation 6-30-2010 [Compatibility Mode]

Managing Partner Tucker Marion will be presenting his new research on start-up innovation outsourcing at the Research and Development Management Conference in Manchester, England between June 30 and July 2.  For more information on the conference please visit: http://www.rndmanagement.info/. The research paper, “Outsourcing Innovation: A Guide for Start-ups”, focuses on lessons and best practices for maximizing the effectiveness of using outside resources to bring your product to market.

The research abstract is below

This paper explores the beneficial impact of outsourcing on new venture innovation development efficiency and effectiveness.  The relationship of outside firms on innovation commercialization is highlighted, with an additional focus on the enabling role service providers such as rapid prototype fabricators and quick-turn manufacturers perform.  We synthesize our research into five distinct lessons, which form a guide for new ventures in selecting and implementing these external resources.  The first lesson is optimizing your firm to allow easy integration of outside resources.  In our study, the most successful firms leveraged a network of outside providers by keeping internal head-count low, and migrating to a software-like agile development processes.  The second lesson is strategically selecting partners that provide more strategic long-term assistance as opposed to only discrete development resources.  These firms help connect channel partners, customers, and new investors.  The third lesson is managing the innovation process through agile milestones, not onerous procedures.  Maintaining a balance between flexibility and discipline is a pathway to success for the new venture.  Next, the ability of the firm to quickly and inexpensively source and have solutions fabricated for internal and external customer testing is essential to an efficient process.   These fast solutions place concepts quickly in the hands of the development team and potential customers – speeding the process to market through rapid vetting of successive iterations.  Finally, the use of quick-turn manufacturers and assemblers can also help the new firm gather important sales data without having to invest large amounts of capital on costly inventory – helping the new venture preserve precious financial capital while capturing data needed for full commercialization.  These guiding lessons not only contribute to applied management knowledge, but outline phenomenon that require further detailed empirical investigation in the space of new venture innovation development.

For additional information on how Flashpoint Development can be your outside innovation experts please contact: info@flashpointdevelopment.com

Tucker Marion Presents Case Studies in Santa Cruz, California

Late in 2009, Tucker Marion along with other authors from Northeastern University presented three case studies at the 2009 North American Case Research Association annual meeting.

http://nacra.net/meeting2009/

The three case studies are designed to drive research and curriculum development in the area of technology venture development.  The idea was simple: given the technological and industry differences between different types of start-ups (devices, biotech, software) – can you look at them through the same lens? Or, are they so different that they need be researched and taught differently? What we found is that there are some clear differences, but there are also some similarities. We found that start-ups, no matter what industry, are comprised of 2-3 founders that are in essence – omni-functional. These people perform tasks from sales to engineering all within the same day – very different from large companies where people work on specific core tasks. We also found that these firms focus on goals, rather than on processes and paperwork – again, very different from large firms. We also found that device companies, driven by the speed and low cost of prototyping, are beginning to resemble agile software firms in the way they approach development. It is this low cost, fast iterative development process that FlashPoint works to optimize for all client projects.  Currently, the research team is working on developing a theory paper to disseminate this research in an academic journal. The research was funded by a grant from NACRA received in 2008.

Link to conference website

http://iced09.stanford.edu/

This past week Flashpoint Development had the privilege to witness industrial designers inventions as a panelist reviewing student projects at MassArt’s School of Industrial Design. We were joined by Staple’s head of design and the department chair of Industrial Design at Mass Art. This Staples co-sponsored event focused on the “worker of the future”.

The first area of design, done by the Sophomores focused on thematic words like aggressive or organic. These produced emotional designs like a spiny teapot and a bulbous tea cup. On a separate assignment these same students were asked to develop new uses for plastic bottles which resulted in LED lamps, radio containers and lots of other solutions.

The juniors took on a brand like John Deere and looked to extend their brand, utilizing their “brand language”, into un-served markets. One of the more powerful concepts was a line of gardening supplies for ‘Jane Deere’ marketed towards females.

The seniors were given a broad opportunity statement, one of which was to use a wearable and portable device to tell time (can’t be a watch). Students developed a Twitter based watch and a graphic based time device (sun rising, moon rising).

A different senior project focused on the “worker of the future” which carefully analyzed how teenagers communicate and feel about technology. Results included mobile offices with kiosks that printed.

Any of these concepts could become the basis for a start-up venture. These designers were taught to examine market needs, usability issues, economics and line extensions. Designers bring a lot to product development team, much more than making devices appealing. Their business, product and design background provides a diverse skill set that can be helpful in any product endeavor.

Flashpoint’s Managing Partner is presenting his paper “On the Use of Global Cost Modeling Early in New Product Development” this weekend at the IEEE International Engineering Management conference in Portugal.  This paper outlines the changes in the new product development industry, discusses the effect of those changes in the new product development process and finally illustrates an evolved new product development process by discussing a project undertaken by Flashpoint Development.  Today, I will focus on the first two topics as we will provide an in depth case study of the project in future posts.

Outsourcing production manufacturing has become the norm of many U.S. companies because it allows the domestic companies to focus on core competencies and often is more cost effective.  The growth of product development technologies like computer aided design (CAD), manufacturing networks (www.mfg.com) and rapid prototyping has allowed accurate manufacturing costs attainable earlier in the product development process. How this change has occurred and how it can help you is best displayed by comparing the traditional New Product Development Process with a process that incorporates cost modeling.

(Ulrich and Eppinger 2004 NPD Process)

In this traditional NPD process, costs can be estimated in the concept development and system level design but accurate product costs are received after the detailed design stage.

The  GNPD Process takes advantage of the ability to request part, assembly and production costs early in the design.  The cost modeling perspective allows developers to understand the cost implications of design trade-offs (complex snap in part or use of a fastener).  These decisions are examined before rapid prototyping, which leads to more accurate testing and fewer redesigns before production.

So the conclusion of this rather academic post is to contact and work with manufacturers even before prototyping.  I would even venture (not in the paper) to talk to manufacturers once you have a good sketch.  Send the sketch in pdf or jpg format to manufacturers and see what they say.  Their input at that stage, although the costs will be estimated, will help further your understanding of the requirements to actually produce your product.

Our Managing Director, Tucker Marion is lecturing at the IEEE International Engineering Management conference in Portugal this weekend on his new paper “On the Use of Global Cost Modeling Early in New Product Development”.  We will be providing the core contents, lessons and conclusions of his talk and paper this weekend so you can learn as if you are right there in Portugal listening to his talk.

Don’t worry we will continue to publish our promised upcoming articles on “So I’ve Got a Great Idea, So What Now?” and the “PaperPro Story”.