The new products design in manufacturing industries is complex, time-consuming, error-prone and very costly. Automating and optimizing these processes is key to meeting market needs quickly, gaining a competitive edge and reducing operating costs.
The new product design process
Designing a new product is a process that involves several areas of the organization. From the sales and marketing team, engineering, user experience, accounting and finance to eventually the CEO itself. Each of these areas will contribute with their specific knowledge for the new product, be it the price, the packaging design, the target audience, the use tests, the approval of the investment for its production, the profitability analysis, etc.
Thus, the design of new products involves a large number of stages, in each of which the different people involved will work. Designing marketing materials, setting the sales price, going through industrial designs, prototyping, running use tests with candidate users, etc.
The logic and coordination of all these activities and people is a complex problem. It can lead to significant delays and cost overruns if not properly defined and automated.
Using a standard notation to formalize this process, such as BPMN, helps to visualize it, discuss it, and improve it. The following is an anonymized example of just one part of an actual new product design process in the manufacturing industry.
Note the complexity inherent in this process, and imagine how difficult (if not impossible) it would be to control the design of several products simultaneously, using Excel spreadsheets or emails.
Automating the design of new products
A business process management (BPM) suite such as Flokzu, allows automating the entire process with a very limited effort. Flokzu’s low-code/no-code feature means that you don’t need programming or technical skills. A functional process improvement team, or other non-IT roles, will be able to do it. Since it runs completely in the cloud, they will only have to worry about analyzing the process and making it more efficient.
The main elements they will have to define are:
- The process form, which will contain all the relevant fields for a new product. For example, the name of the new product, the estimated sales price, the estimated cost, etc.
- The process workflow, with the graphic diagram of the necessary steps for a new product. For example, the design tasks, prototyping, costing, etc.
Once these elements are configured, you are ready to deploy the process. With a single click, it can be used by users, tested, and adjusted.
Benefits for the manufacturing industry
The manufacturing industry will benefit from automating the process of designing new products in the following dimensions:
- Time-to-market reduction. Automating the process, working in parallel, with alerts and timers, will help bring products to market faster. Take advantage of opportunities and beat the competition.
- Reduce costs associated with the design of new products. By requiring less time due to automation, and eliminating manual tasks to follow up on pending tasks, the costs associated with launching a new product are reduced. This improves the competitiveness of the product and the whole company.
- Measure the time in each stage as well as the performance of the people involved through objective performance indicators (KPI)
Replace endless emails and spreadsheets to manage the new product workflow. Let your team collaborate, having one centralized place to monitor all on-going processes.
Conclusions
Creating a new product in the manufacturing industry is complex and expensive. Collaboration becomes complex because it involves several areas such as engineering, marketing, operations, and so on. Automating these processes with Flokzu cloud BPM allows you to reduce costs and time-to-market.
Dozens of manufacturing companies in the United States and Europe have already significantly improved their new product design processes with Flokzu. Our technology has proven to be immensely useful, at an accessible cost and with a minimum implementation time.
We invite you to learn more about these experiences by scheduling a work session.
