Blog

I got a call from an engineering friend of mine. He just moved to a new city for a new job. He writes firmware for a small company. Reason for the call? He is bored and wondered if we had any projects he could work on. Good engineers love their jobs and hate just sitting… Read More

The prototype is all done and it seems to work well. Now, how do you get the prototype manufactured reliably and at a reasonable cost? If your team is at this stage, here are a few things to think about: Do a Design Verification Test (DVT) Just turning your prototype on and seeing the lights… Read More

A Design Verification Test (DVT) proves that the drawings, if followed correctly, will produce a product that meets the requirements. In order to avoid a myriad of issues, a DVT should be conducted before the product is released to manufacturing. Here are some tips for conducting DVTs: In order to avoid “groupthink,” use a different… Read More

As I am sure you know, FinishLinePDS only develops products for small companies. Just because you’re a small company does not mean you should hire a cheap engineer. In fact, doing so will likely end up costing you more. To be clear, I am not advocating you hire an expensive engineer either, or that you… Read More

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” Yogi Berra Sometimes product development projects do not live up to their initial promise. Knowing when to shut down a project can be an essential ingredient to success. Most new product ideas start with high expectations, but over time, some start to fade. Worse, this process often… Read More

Have you ever imagined what kind of product you would develop if money was no obstacle? Maybe that product is not as far out of reach as you might think. Sometimes when I ask our customers this question, the answer I hear is some kind of internet connected, color touch screen, portable wiz-bang calculating device…. Read More

Recently I had a client give me an idea for a new product he had been thinking of and then ask me for a Gantt Chart (Gantt Charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project) for the project. I tried to explain that creating such a… Read More

Prototype, MVP (Minimally Viable Product) and PoC (Proof of Concept) often get lumped together as one thing. This is understandable because each is an early version of a product; however, that is about all they have in common. Understanding this difference is important. Pre-Production Prototype A pre-production prototype is what you would imagine any prototype… Read More

Every company wants to sell a product that never fails. The reality is that even great companies have product failures. The difference between the great companies and the good ones is not perfection, but how they view failure and what processes they use to address the failure. Do they see it as an opportunity to… Read More

In the landmark HBR article The Four Things a Service Business Must Get Right, by Frances X. Frei, the author contrasts a product business from a service business. The author opines that in a service business, unlike products businesses, the customer is a key part of the product realization processes. His research leads him to… Read More