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Why Relying On Manufactures To Design Your Product Often Hurts Your Business
Introducing a new product to the market is an exciting yet challenging journey, often accompanied by significant costs and pressure. While it might seem logical to go directly to a manufacturer to streamline expenses and minimise involved parties, this approach can introduce risks that may ultimately jeopardize your business. Allow us to explain why this strategy is usually a bad idea.
What do product designers do?
When you partner with a product design consultancy like FLYNN, you gain the advantage of working with an objective and highly dedicated team. Our primary focus is to deliver a product designed not only to succeed in the market but to do so in the most cost-effective and innovative way possible.
As specialists in creative design for manufacture, we approach every project completely agnostic to materials and production methods. Our choices are guided simply by what will best contribute to the success of your product. For us, success means helping you optimise production costs and create a product that stands out in a competitive market. When you save money on production while achieving a top-tier product, it’s a win for both your business and ours.
At FLYNN, we evaluate all the factors that contribute to a product’s success, industrial design, functionality, market fit, and cost-efficiency, helping you strike the perfect balance. We collaborate closely with you to assess the key priorities for your product, ensuring it meets USP’s while adhering to production cost targets.
In short, we help you lead with design. Your product is the face of your business, and we’re committed to delivering the highest quality design packaged with an efficient and cost-effective manufacturing strategy.
What do manufacturers do?
Manufacturers excel at creating and assembling parts based on detailed drawings. Their expertise lies in specific manufacturing techniques and materials, typically focusing on just a few specialties. While their skills in production are invaluable, they often fall short when it comes to design, as their creativity and problem-solving are constrained by their technical scope. Many manufacturers outsource design tasks to subcontractors because their core focus is production, not innovation.
When manufacturers approach design, they tend to think within the boundaries of their day-to-day capabilities. For example, if a manufacturer specializes in CNC machining, their design solutions will inherently lean towards CNC components, limiting creativity and exploration. This narrow focus can hinder the development of more well-rounded designs that might incorporate alternative materials or production methods to better suit the product’s needs.
Additionally, manufacturers often lack the incentive to minimise production costs in the same way a product design consultancy would. Since their revenue comes from the production process itself, they benefit from higher production costs rather than finding creative ways to reduce them. This mindset means they are less likely to explore innovative solutions or consider creative workarounds that optimise for cost, functionality, and user experience.
IP grey areas
When a manufacturer designs your product, it can often lead to grey areas surrounding intellectual property (IP) ownership. Since the manufacturer created the design from scratch, they may claim ownership over it, including the technical drawings and schematics required to produce your product. In the worst-case scenario, this could leave you without full control of your own product, unable to produce or modify it without their involvement. We’ve seen it before where a manufacturer solves some technical problems and they argue they embedded some rights within the design, creating significant challenges for businesses.
At FLYNN, we take a completely different approach. As an independent design consultancy, our sole focus is empowering you to succeed. To that end, we gladly assign all commercial rights (IP) of the designs we create directly to you. You become the complete owner of your product’s design, ensuring that you retain full control and flexibility.
By fully owning the IP, you have the freedom to choose who builds your product, negotiate competitive terms, and scale your business as you see fit. At FLYNN, our goal is to deliver innovative, market-ready designs that prioritise your long-term success and ownership, giving you the tools to grow with confidence.
To sum up
We’re not suggesting you cut ties with your manufacturer, on the contrary, a strong relationship with your suppliers is crucial to the success of your business. However, relying on your manufacturer to design your product as well as produce it is a strategy filled with challenges. Instead, bringing in an external design team to collaborate with your manufacturer and provide them with detailed production drawings ensures a smoother and more effective partnership.
Embarking on the product development journey is both costly and time-consuming. While it might seem convenient to combine design and manufacturing under one roof, this approach often introduces significant risks. Manufacturers are production experts, not necessarily creative problem-solvers or product designers. Attempting to merge these roles can result in delays, added expenses, and potential product failures that erode your budget and timeline.
The best approach is to keep designers and manufactures as separate parties. By partnering with an experienced design firm like FLYNN, you ensure your product is developed with the highest standards of innovation, cost efficiency, and market readiness in mind. We work closely with manufacturers when appropriate, providing them with clear and accurate production drawings to streamline the manufacturing process. This separation of expertise reduces risks and positions your product for success while maintaining cost-effectiveness.
Reach out to our team to learn how you can leverage our expertise to create innovative, cost-effective solutions. We’d love to partner with you and help bring your vision to life!
We provide businesses with product design consultancy, industrial design, prototype design & related services.
