Renaud hosts and is joined by Sofeast's senior engineer Paul Adams to go through Technology Readiness Levels which is a product development framework that is often used to gauge the progress of a new product launch project, especially during prototyping. But is it useful for today's manufacturers who are mass producing, say, consumer electronics? Find out here...

00:00 - Greetings and introducing today's topic.

01:08 - Where did the TRL originate?

04:37 - The 9 Technology Readiness Levels.

20:02 - Can we use this framework for products that will be mass-produced?

26:09 - What is missing from the TRL in order to manufacture products in large quantities?

37:38 - Wrapping up.

• Technology Readiness Levels: A Better Product Development Framework?

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Sofeast's CEO Renaud flies solo in this episode and discusses what he thought of the recent Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson. What can we, the manufacturing community, learn from this enigmatic character? As you'll hear, one of his specialities is making positive DFM (Design for Manufacturing) changes, so there will be plenty of focus on those, but also on his 5-point algorithm for success, triumphs and failures in manufacturing, and more.

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

06:25 - Elon Musk: A great contributor to humanity?

09:21 - Automation then de-automation

11:26 - Making product design engineers responsible for the manufacturing process.

13:24 - Musk's 5-point algorithm for success.

23:44 - The 'Idiot Index'.

25:44 - Material science: The unexpected choice to replace carbon fiber with stainless steel in some SpaceX parts.

27:31 - Using a revolutionary stainless-steel body for the cyber truck.

30:30 - Changing how die-casting is used in the automotive trade.

32:23 - Wrapping up.

• What is Design for Manufacturing (DFM)?

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Adrian and Andrew Amirnovin, Sofeast's reliability expert and our head of New Product Development, are back on the pod and taking you on a journey into what testing to failure is, its benefits, and why you will find it a useful tool in your product reliability testing arsenal.

00:00 - Greetings and introducing today's topic.

01:28 - What is test to failure?

05:33 - Why does testing to failure matter to companies who are bringing a new product to market (5 reasons)?

14:30 - Some examples where weaknesses were found in products which allowed them to be fixed.

19:56 - What kinds of methodologies can we follow when doing test to failure?

32:31 - Products and industries where this is a very useful kind of testing to do.

37:20 - Is test to failure wasteful?

41:10 - Wrapping up.

• Get help from Sofeast to do Reliability Engineering & Testing (in a China lab) - we provide reliability engineering services including reliability testing on component and PCB levels as well as the product level on various types of consumer products. Some of these tests include drop, vibration, temperature and humidity and package testing. We can customize the right tests for your product.

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Sofeast's CEO Renaud explains what a manufacturing organizational chart is and, critically, 7 key things that we can learn about our suppliers from theirs. During your sourcing journey, Renaud's advice will help you spot potential issues with some red flags to be aware of. (Adrian from the team hosts).

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

02:03 - What is an organizational chart?

06:39 - 1. No Quality Dept.

10:26 - 2. Placing the quality department under the production manager.

14:44 - 3. Putting the production manager in charge of the planning department.

16:20 - 4. No planning system at all!

20:35 - 5. No team of manufacturing engineers.

24:16 - 6. No dedicated HR department or the HR staff are at a junior level.

27:08 - 7. Job titles are unclear on the org chart and sometimes inappropriate for the person.

30:44 - Summary and wrapping up.

• Organizational chart definition

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Renaud hosts today and is joined by Andrew Amirnovin, Sofeast's reliability expert and our head of New Product Development, to cover the topic of reliability data and how it can be used to help you make better products and reduce your costs.

00:00 - Greetings and introducing today's topic.

00:43 - What kind of reliability data can we get?

04:43 - Keeping a database of past issues or 'lessons learnt.'

10:29 - Where do issues that occur during manufacturing come from?

12:50 - How can reliability data be used to make better products?

17:16 - How user experience can influence a new testing plan.

19:46 - Over-engineering and reliability: Mercedes Cars in the 1980s and NOKIA phones that seemed to be indestructible.

25:11 - How can reliability data be used to cut production costs?

27:56 - An example from the early automobile industry: Henry Ford's Model-T Kingpin

33:52 - Takata airbag safety scandal.

38:39 - Wrapping up.

• Get help from Sofeast to do Reliability Engineering & Testing (in a China lab) - we provide reliability engineering services including reliability testing on component and PCB levels as well as the product level on various types of consumer products. Some of these tests include drop, vibration, temperature and humidity and package testing. We can customize the right tests for your product.

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Renaud makes it clear where you need to be with new product designs before you approach Chinese manufacturers. He also explains the risks with immature designs, common red flags, and the work you'll need to do to have designs that can be called 'ready to industrialize.'

00:00 - Introduction.

01:24 - What do we mean by mature product designs?

04:54 - Don't ignore important phases and milestones in the NPI process.

07:30 - What the average Chinese manufacturer will need from you before they can get started.

09:45 - Approaching suppliers in the right way.

16:20 - Is there a risk that a 'bad' manufacturer might take your project with immature designs and lead to failure and wasted time and money?

18:53 - Common red flags demonstrating that product designs are immature.

25:41 - Summary and wrapping up.

• Why Skipping NPI Phases Is A Big Mistake

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Renaud welcomes e-commerce guru and host of the popular 'The Seller Process' podcast, Gianmarco Meli, to the podcast today to talk about building better systems and processes for your company if you're importing and selling products that you make or buy in low-cost Asia online via e-commerce and want to be more successful.

00:00 - Introducing today's topic and Gianmarco.

04:19 - When starting up with e-commerce, what to work on (and optimize/systematize) first?

15:52 - Tips for systematizing and improving processes.

21:11 - When importing products and selling them in e-commerce, what are the biggest risks to watch out for? And what are the processes that really make a difference in reaching business objectives?

27:09 - The number 1 risk when selling products online.

30:02 - How to build good relationships with suppliers?

39:10 - Wrapping up.

• The NPI Process for Effective Product Development

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Renaud and Adrian talk about what a feasibility study for new products is, its benefits, and everything you need to know in order to implement yours. This will really help you to identify potential issues long before you manufacture your product, saving time and money on correcting them later on.

00:00 - Introduction.

02:01 - Many people don't consider doing a feasibility study.

03:11 - The 6 phases of the NPI process for an electro-mechanical product.

15:12 - The role of industrial designers in realizing concepts where the product needs to look good and who else helps you here.

20:10 - What to do in projects where figuring out how to make the product work is paramount. 

23:01 - Using the feasibility study's designs and prototypes for marketing and sales.

24:54 - The 'Just Do It' or 'Go' syndrome is the biggest mistake to avoid.

38:30 - What if a product is rushed into mass production?

44:21 - Tips on how to do your own feasibility study based on how large businesses conduct theirs.

50:26 - Wrapping up.

• Why Skipping NPI Phases Is A Big Mistake

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Join Andrew Amirnovin, Sofeast's reliability expert and our head of New Product Development, on a deep dive into what component-level testing is, the process followed for selecting and testing components that won't let you down, and the various benefits you'll get by doing this during the product design and development process.

00:00 - Greetings and introducing today's topic.

01:21 - What is the difference between component-level and product-level testing?

08:14 - What's the component qualification process?

15:59 - The 10-point component testing and evaluation process. 

36:13 - Why businesses and entrepreneurs bringing a new product to market shouldn't be expected to have the testing expertise in-house and what we do to help.

40:18 - Examples of problems that might occur if component testing is not done properly.

43:37 - Do YOU need to decide on and do all types of component-level testing?

47:10 - Wrapping up.

• Get help from Sofeast to do Reliability Engineering & Testing (in a China lab) - we provide reliability engineering services including reliability testing on component and PCB levels as well as the product level on various types of consumer products. Some of these tests include drop, vibration, temperature and humidity and package testing. We can customize the right tests for your product.

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Renaud and our senior engineer Paul Adams discuss the Taguchi method, also known as Robust Design. The Taguchi method is a tool used in engineering and manufacturing to improve product and process quality and reduce defects at an early stage. It is a statistical analysis approach used early in the product development process that reduces your costs and improves product quality and reliability, so is a popular way to develop products that are less risky to manufacture.

00:00 - Introduction.

01:07 - What is the Taguchi method? (Summary)

04:01 - Would a Taguchi method analysis point out risks and provide solutions about how to change the product design and/or manufacturing processes so the product could be made consistently well?

06:36 - Example: Plastic injection molding.

12:25 - Taguchi method is not a recent innovation, it's a well-established methodology.

18:03 - What do you need for good finished products?

21:05 - Benefits of doing early Taguchi analysis.

24:54 - The concept of value loss.

30:49 - How do teams who try to develop a new product without using the Taguchi methodology usually get on?

34:13 - When to follow a Taguchi testing approach?

36:50 - Caution: Statistical approaches are not a magic bullet.

38:49 - Wrapping up.

• Robust Design: Enhancing Product Quality and Performance

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There are more episodes to come, so remember to subscribe! You can do so in your favorite podcast apps here and don't forget to give us a 5-star rating, please:

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