Prototype Manufacturing Services
Eliminate risk, execute design sprints, and accelerate your path to volume production.
What type of prototype do you need?
Build the right type of prototype to match your project requirements.
Rapid Prototypes.
Our in-house rapid prototype shop is equipped with 3D-Printing, SLA, and CNC machines, allowing for fast turn around of prototype parts.
We often prototype parts and components throughout the product development process to assess their fit, form, and function. The prototype technique we use is dependent on the quality, time and functional requirements for the part.
Interactive MVP Prototypes.
Building a minimum-viable-product (MVP) prototype helps you test user experience early in the product development process.
Our design and engineer team construct creative ways to prototype your interactive product idea early-on in development. This allows you to quickly get user feedback and refine the functionality, saving you time and development cost over the course of your project.
Electronics Prototypes.
Before diving into custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design, start with breadboards and off-the-shelf (OTS) electronics to de-risk your project.
Turning to OTS parts and dev boards early-on in development allows you to quickly transition from concept to physical product for user testing. Once key features and functionality are defined, we then help you access whether a custom component vs. OTS is best for your product and business goals.
What benefits will your prototype bring?
Understand your product/market fit by testing your key hypotheses before moving to production.
Hypothesis Testing.
Does your product vision hinge on one or two key unverified hypotheses? Test these upfront using virtual simulation and physical prototyping.
Early on engineering and user testing of your design concepts can rule out major design, function, and cost issues. This helps you get to market faster with a user verified solution with no surprises.
Product/Market Fit
Put your product on the path to success by determining the right product/market fit with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prototype.
For hardware, building an MVP prototype is critical to test and refine a physical product idea. Hardware MVP prototypess we build range from high-fidelity production quality models for tradeshows to rudimentary low-fidelity prototypes for fast turnaround evaluation and usability testing.
Moving to Production.
Want to move straight into high volume production? Make sure you have your alpha production intent prototype right first.
Alpha prototypes are the last time you want to make changes to your physical product prior to volume production. We build alpha prototypes that mimic your volume manufacturing process and allow engineers, regulators, and users to carefully assess the quality and function of your product.
Prototyping Examples
Our team designs and orders over 5000 unique prototype parts each year.
We use many prototyping techniques and materials from trusted global prototyping specialists.
Prototyping during the product development process.
During product development we create different types of prototypes at each stage to quantify risk.
Prototyping during concept design is rapid process where the goal is to determine the optimal product concept solution.
Types of prototypes we build during concept design include:
- 3D CAD product concepts - high resolution renderings
- Hand sketches and 3D CAD geometry for strong communication of concept options
- Low fidelity mock-up non-working prototype for user reaction evaluations
- Scale model mock-ups: to evaluate Ergonomics, Cognitive and Appearance model reactions by users
- Experiential UI concept simulations, storyboarding, wireframes to assess ease of use (keys, displays, audio interfaces)
- Works-like off the shelf customized breadboard electronics to evaluate function, establish specifications
- Fast code software/firmware of near off the shelf components to demo function, fine tune positive reactions to early stage prototypes
- Finite Element Analysis (Thermal, Fluids, Stress, Audio…) to determine feasible structural and geometric configurations
- Modified Off-the-shelf components customized and library software modules customized for testing features and verifying hypotheses
- Interactive Wizard of Oz prototypes that use off the shelf customized components to assess high value attributes of product
During the Detailed Engineering stage prototyping is used to de-risk your product concept solution.
Types of prototypes built during this stage may include:
- Bench model breadboard electronics to optimize sub-system product features operation and specifications
- Works-like functional prototypes for mechanism modeling of features for refinement and performance evaluation
- Quick cut in-house machined parts and in-house additive rapid prototype mock-up modeling to test and refine the design
During the Pre-Production Prototyping stage, the goal is to create a high-fidelity production intent prototype to verify the design.
Types of non-production intent prototypes we create during this stage include:
- High fidelity production intent ‘alpha’ physical prototype (machined, molded, stamped, formed, SLA, SLS… additive process parts created)
- Fully functional additional ‘alpha’ prototypes created for debug confirmation and verification
- Fully functional working ‘alpha’ prototype – integrated electronic hardware+software features and function debug confirmation and verification
- Low volume custom PCB's to assist in design verification process
- Quick prototype material mold to produce low volume hard to prototype parts such as rubber components, fabrics, cabling, special materials
- Regulatory approval testing and performance testing is possible with prototype product
- Prototype product is available for comment from users, buyers and for collateral such as product photography
During the Manufacturing support stage, final production prototypes are built to verify design transfer to production.
Types of production prototypes built by manufacturing partners may include:
- Off tool production parts to measure parts, approve part tolerances and approve tools
- Fully product assemblies for pilot run product builds and design approval of all product specifications
- Pre-release product available for external regulatory testing submission and approval
- Pre-release product and parts for materials testing and approval
- Pre-release product is available for user, customer and market approval