Low volume tooling is typically lower cost in terms of investment, but lower production capacity and higher unit cost. Gets you to market faster with production units. High volume tooling is more expensive – longer lead time, but more capacity and lower cost.

For new ventures, it usually makes sense to do low volume tooling first, then high volume. Unless you have a ton of booked orders – then it might make sense to go high volume from the start.

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Always Plan.  You can use anything to plan, Microsoft Project, Excel or even a napkin.  Several tricks that we use and reasons to plan are:

When begining a project it is important to plan out the major phases because lining up resources can take time.  Even if a specific engineering task is months away, start soliciting help because getting your project lined up with the availability of experts can take some time.

Development plans can change.  Unforeseen technological obstacles can emerge in the investigation process.  It is important to build in some flexibility to the plan to account for these unforeseen road blocks.

Planning minimizes risk.  The stage gate process was created to accomplish this.  Setup milestones in your plan that allow you to step back and evaluate progress, direction and the future.  We use several milestones, complete Industrial Design sketchups, CAD renderings, Form Prototype, Functional Prototype, Complete Prototype etc all the way up to Production Run.

The only warning that I will provide is ‘don’t plan on planning’.  Do it right now.

What is T5+2?
T5+2 is a concept definition process that isolates the top 5 specifications or goals for a product from two perspectives, the client, investor or inventor and the end customer. Bringing the most important items to the front of the project help clarify the concept focus development and maintain budget expectations.

How to use T5+2

1. Write it up. The process of putting thoughts to paper (or keyboard) forces you to prioritize aspects of the device and explain your vision of the end product.
2. Talk about it.  Bring your T5+2 to your team, supporting staff and customers.  See what others think about what is most important.  Change your T5+2 to reflect your new findings.
3. Plan with it.  The T5+2 represents the most important ends to your product.  The completion of these aspects represent critical milestones.  Other add-on tasks are not priority.
4. Put it in the Spec Doc.  Bringing in outside consultants can be problematic, but by displaying the top aspects of the device confusion can be avoided.

The T5+2 document is done very early with out clientelle and is the guiding document.  There are many other versions or names of this document that are more complicated but start with the basics!