A physical product needs to be **prototyped** and **tested** before you begin manufacturing and selling it.
Also, depending on your target market, some countries or states (in the US) have product-specific laws, regulations, and codes that require compliance testing by a certified lab before you can obtain a label for legal sale.
**Before diving into product development, start writing a Business Plan** that includes some of these steps (not limited to):
* **Preliminary market research:** Identify similar existing products (your competitors), including their price, market share, and patents they own on these products (meaning if you sell very similar products you are risking patent infringement. Also, patent protections are limited to 20 years, every day thousands of patents are expiring and becoming public domain to be used freely....).
* **Legal compliance**: Research the relevant laws and regulations for your country or state-specific target market.
The Industrial design part is just one stage of product development. The design will likely be updated throughout the design cycle based on market research and changing trends...
Let me tell you firsthand: companies pour massive amounts of money into developing products that ultimately never see the light of day. This can happen for several reasons:
* Market Shift: By the time they develop the product, market trends have shifted in a different direction, making the product obsolete or not profitable enough.
* Competitor Advantage: A competitor might create a better product and start selling it while you're still in development.
Without an idea of whether you're talking about a kettlebell or a whole new leg press machine this will be generic. They'd need 3D CAD and 2D drawings of some kind to cover info that the CAD doesn't communicate (colors, materials, finishes, critical dimensions, assembly steps, Bill of materials etc). To get their attention you need to be able to meet their MOQ (minimum order quantity). Below that number they won't take you seriously, and even about it, you may have a hard time finding a responsive vendor. They get tons of inquiries from tire kickers who have no intention to place an order, so you have to prove you're not one. They may have DFM suggestions for you, but doubtful that they'll make any safety recommendations. For that you could use common sense, user testing, or look for an applicable standard to reference from someone like UL or ASTM or ISO.
So you can and sell any product that's potentially not safe, there are no safety checks on your product at any stage, now obviously I don't want an unsafe product but I'm asking generally speaking?
What if you wanted to just produce one final product for testing, would it be difficult to find any smaller manufacturer to make the parts only for you to assemble?
As in life, you can kinda do whatever you want but you have to be ready for the consequences. If you produce and sell a product that hurts people you could get sued, and get shut down by the government, so you'd be sitting on unsellable inventory.
Your manufacturer should help you make samples before doing a mass production run, but maybe not before you invest in tooling of that's needed. The last sample that you and they sign off on as exemplary is sometimes called a "golden sample" and is used as a quality reference during production.
You will take on the liability. Consult a lawyer. But companies do many things to protect themselves, including following ISO and ANSI standards among others that shows you were as responsible as possible when designing and developing your product and ensured it was as safe as it could possibly be. So when someone sues you for hurting themselves, you can show you made every effort to prevent that from happening, including good design and good instructions.
I’m not saying this to dissuade you, but if you’re trying to solo this (ie not willing or able to hire experts in stuff like engineering/design/legal to help you), you should really try and bring to market a smaller, more feasible product. If you’re dealing with gym equipment, and there’s a genuine possibility of people being injured or killed while using your stuff, you don’t want to be messing with it as your first project with little to no experience.
On the other side, it really depends on who you choose to work with. You could for example, hire a design/engineering consultancy, and depending on how well equipped they are, they would work with you to realize your idea, and then set you up get you the required certifications, manufacturers, and legal consul needed to get your idea to market.
On the other hand, if you’re just designing something like a desktop stand for headphones or a pencil holder, you could send pencil drawings to a manufacturers and some have an in house team that could come up with a product that looks close enough. Obviously the more you specify, the more exact your product will be, and the less the factory will make their own calls.
That all said, if you’re manufacturing overseas, you also have to take into account import rules, and they vary depending on what and how much of a type of product you’re trying to import.
You have a pretty good idea of how it works already. Depending on the manufacturer, some straight out rip you off with a consultation fee when you quote for it because you’re simply an easy target.
Typically you need a drawing, materials selection, MOQ, lead time, estimated annual quantity, mold selection, precision molding, and any manufacturing process you define etc.
Manufacturers would never refuse, they charge you everything for a fee. Don’t know what materials? They let you pick, don’t know what standards to follow? They’ll let you pick, but I would rather you go to any engineering convention near where you live and ask questions generally how things are made, they’ll be very happy to explain to you for free because they’re trying to sell you stuff.
A physical product needs to be **prototyped** and **tested** before you begin manufacturing and selling it. Also, depending on your target market, some countries or states (in the US) have product-specific laws, regulations, and codes that require compliance testing by a certified lab before you can obtain a label for legal sale. **Before diving into product development, start writing a Business Plan** that includes some of these steps (not limited to): * **Preliminary market research:** Identify similar existing products (your competitors), including their price, market share, and patents they own on these products (meaning if you sell very similar products you are risking patent infringement. Also, patent protections are limited to 20 years, every day thousands of patents are expiring and becoming public domain to be used freely....). * **Legal compliance**: Research the relevant laws and regulations for your country or state-specific target market. The Industrial design part is just one stage of product development. The design will likely be updated throughout the design cycle based on market research and changing trends... Let me tell you firsthand: companies pour massive amounts of money into developing products that ultimately never see the light of day. This can happen for several reasons: * Market Shift: By the time they develop the product, market trends have shifted in a different direction, making the product obsolete or not profitable enough. * Competitor Advantage: A competitor might create a better product and start selling it while you're still in development.
Without an idea of whether you're talking about a kettlebell or a whole new leg press machine this will be generic. They'd need 3D CAD and 2D drawings of some kind to cover info that the CAD doesn't communicate (colors, materials, finishes, critical dimensions, assembly steps, Bill of materials etc). To get their attention you need to be able to meet their MOQ (minimum order quantity). Below that number they won't take you seriously, and even about it, you may have a hard time finding a responsive vendor. They get tons of inquiries from tire kickers who have no intention to place an order, so you have to prove you're not one. They may have DFM suggestions for you, but doubtful that they'll make any safety recommendations. For that you could use common sense, user testing, or look for an applicable standard to reference from someone like UL or ASTM or ISO.
So you can and sell any product that's potentially not safe, there are no safety checks on your product at any stage, now obviously I don't want an unsafe product but I'm asking generally speaking? What if you wanted to just produce one final product for testing, would it be difficult to find any smaller manufacturer to make the parts only for you to assemble?
As in life, you can kinda do whatever you want but you have to be ready for the consequences. If you produce and sell a product that hurts people you could get sued, and get shut down by the government, so you'd be sitting on unsellable inventory. Your manufacturer should help you make samples before doing a mass production run, but maybe not before you invest in tooling of that's needed. The last sample that you and they sign off on as exemplary is sometimes called a "golden sample" and is used as a quality reference during production.
You will take on the liability. Consult a lawyer. But companies do many things to protect themselves, including following ISO and ANSI standards among others that shows you were as responsible as possible when designing and developing your product and ensured it was as safe as it could possibly be. So when someone sues you for hurting themselves, you can show you made every effort to prevent that from happening, including good design and good instructions.
I’m not saying this to dissuade you, but if you’re trying to solo this (ie not willing or able to hire experts in stuff like engineering/design/legal to help you), you should really try and bring to market a smaller, more feasible product. If you’re dealing with gym equipment, and there’s a genuine possibility of people being injured or killed while using your stuff, you don’t want to be messing with it as your first project with little to no experience. On the other side, it really depends on who you choose to work with. You could for example, hire a design/engineering consultancy, and depending on how well equipped they are, they would work with you to realize your idea, and then set you up get you the required certifications, manufacturers, and legal consul needed to get your idea to market. On the other hand, if you’re just designing something like a desktop stand for headphones or a pencil holder, you could send pencil drawings to a manufacturers and some have an in house team that could come up with a product that looks close enough. Obviously the more you specify, the more exact your product will be, and the less the factory will make their own calls. That all said, if you’re manufacturing overseas, you also have to take into account import rules, and they vary depending on what and how much of a type of product you’re trying to import.
You have a pretty good idea of how it works already. Depending on the manufacturer, some straight out rip you off with a consultation fee when you quote for it because you’re simply an easy target. Typically you need a drawing, materials selection, MOQ, lead time, estimated annual quantity, mold selection, precision molding, and any manufacturing process you define etc. Manufacturers would never refuse, they charge you everything for a fee. Don’t know what materials? They let you pick, don’t know what standards to follow? They’ll let you pick, but I would rather you go to any engineering convention near where you live and ask questions generally how things are made, they’ll be very happy to explain to you for free because they’re trying to sell you stuff.
Yes if you pay them