How Prototyping Fosters Collaboration

1. How Prototyping Fosters Collaboration There is a buzzword in modern business we would bet just about everyone involved in composites hears frequently. That word is 'collaboration'. Consultants are constantly telling us how important collaboration is. We hear about it from senior management, sales professionals, and even the customers who buy our products. Did you know that in the composites industry, prototyping and collaboration are intertwined? Assuming your company embraces prototyping for new products, ask yourself why. What benefit does your company get from working with us to produce a composite prototype of a new part? The answers should be obvious. Prototyping enhances evaluation and testing. It reduces risks, helps shape production processes, and opens doors to patenting revolutionary designs. Realizing all these benefits requires the full participation of every stakeholder. In that sense, prototyping fosters collaboration. It pulls all the stakeholders in and demands their participation. Prototyping expects their input; it needs their involvement; it thrives on their thoughts and ideas. Show and Tell Collaboration One of the goals behind our prototyping services is to produce rapid composite prototypes our customers can immediately start working with. We like to think of it as show and tell collaboration. The customer tells us what they want by way of drawings and specifications. We then produce something they can show off. How does this promote collaboration? By giving stakeholders something that they can touch and handle. A prototype is a working version of the concept from which it was developed and, as such, something everyone involved in the design and engineering process can personally experience. Putting a prototype in their hands encourages them to evaluate it, test it, and improve it together. If your company has worked with prototypes before, you know what happens. You bring a prototype into a conference room and start passing it around. It's not long before the conversations begin. The prototype has gathered the right people together and encouraged the kind of collaboration that will eventually lead to production. Bringing Ideas to Life Some of the most well-respected companies in the world would never think about investing in a new project without a working prototype first. Car companies start with prototypes that eventually become concept cars. Theme parks develop prototypes for the new attractions long before construction begins. All these prototypes have one thing in common: they bring ideas to life.

2. This is another important part of collaboration. When collaboration is limited only to ideas on paper, it also tends to be limited to facts and figures. The prototype releases those facts and figures and gives way to vision and imagination. This is the kind of thing that gets engineers excited. It is what encourages designers to collaborate on making those ideas brought to life even better. Prototyping a Worthwhile Investment It is no secret in our industry that companies try to spend as little as possible on developing new products. Producing composite parts is expensive; we get that. But we firmly believe that prototyping is a worthwhile investment. The amount of value that can be gleaned from a prototype goes well beyond the financial, though it does end up benefiting the bottom line in the end. There are companies that avoid prototyping so as to save some money. But how much do they really save? They might be able to quantify dollars and cents by way of a cost analysis, but such analyses do not account for collaboration. Would the various stakeholders have collaborated better with a prototyping program? Probably. The only way to know for sure is to embrace the prototype and see what eventually happens.