Mexico Product Development, an alternative to China ODM?
What options are there to develop a new hardware product?
Product Development is complicated and expensive, this reality has been one of the main barriers for innovation, since most entities be it people or companies with great ideas for new products already have their hands full with other obligations. Getting all the needed functions to develop a product can be extremely hard or expensive, if not impossible. There are many approaches to developing new product with many advantages and disadvantages, still, an unexplored option is hiring a Nearshore Hardware Product Development agency (NHPD), the most known options are:
- Developing it yourself (person or company).
- Assembling your own team of freelancers.
- Hiring a local Product Design Firm.
- Partnering with a Chinese ODM.
Still, before starting to discuss this subject, it is important that we clear few concepts such as Contract Manufacturer (CM), Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Original Design Manufacturer (ODM).
To get a clearer vision of this, lets recap a few other concepts: A New Product Development (NPD) is the process of bringing new product idea to market. This process can be divided (for the sake of this article) in the following stages:
- Fuzzy Front End(FFE), which refers to the set of activities aimed at getting the requirements for a new product idea.
- Product Design, this stage turns the requirements from what into how, includes engineering design, industrial design and marketing pre-commercialization analysis.
- Product Implementation, this takes the product design and moves it from a prototype stage to a final product ready for production.
- Fuzzy Back End (FBE), here´s where the production and commercialization phases occur.
Many kickstarter companies, spin offs, or startups tend to have the FFE covered, they´re usually struck with an idea and they see a good opportunity that they want to exploit. They´re willing to partner or collaborate with someone who can take care of some of the aspects of the NPD process.
To put it more specifically, if you need someone to take care of steps from 2 to 4 (although, you´d do the commercialization part of step 4 of course), you need an ODM, if you need someone to take care of steps 3 and 4 (without the commercialization again), you would partner with a CM. An OEM is when someone provides you parts of your whole integrated product, those parts tough, won´t have your label on them, the whole integrated product will and either you or and ODM or CM will assemble those parts in the final product.
Recently, the world’s ODM, OEM and CM has been delivered primarily and by a big margin by China. They have set up the most efficient landscape for this purpose and it´s almost impossible for many global companies to compete with them, so they must almost unavoidably partner with Chinese companies to achieve their goals.
Why Nearshore Hardware?
Still, it´s not all sunshine and rainbows working with your new team from the other side of the globe. One of the downsides from this is poor communication and the time difference especially for American companies. This can lead to a lot of distrust due to a not very personal relationship, lost time and inefficiency. This is more so when you want help with the product design as well which is something that requires a lot of communication, this is one of the cases when Nearshore Hardware Services are extremely efficient and should be considered.
On the other hand, many renowned product design firms from the US and Europe are more than willing to take your money and help you up to the best of their capabilities to get your product ready, yet the costs do tend to go overboard and the service is not necessarily any better. With insane costs, this is almost impossible unless you´re a huge company with 400k or more in the pocket for spending.
An often overlooked actor in this stage has been Mexico, the perfect Nearshore Hardware alternative to US companies, which due to a series of phenomenon has created a similar landscape to China when it comes to cheap labor and talent. This factor multiplies twofold when you focus in Yucatan Peninsula, which is very close to Florida and has become one of Mexico´s hubs for engineering and research in the fields of Mechatronics, Electronics and Software, also having one of Mexico´s cheapest living costs and yet, great infrastructure and lots of engineering degrees.
What is a good Nearshore Hardware Product Development Company?
In the last two decades, many US companies have taken this as an advantage and started working with nearshore firms for software development not yet taking the step when it comes to electronic and mechanical design.
A new player in this market is our agency called IDW Industrial, www.idwmx.com . Offering Nearshore Hardware Product Development services from concept generation, mechanical design, electronic hardware development, prototyping and production sourcing from both ends, China and Mexico depending on the client’s requirements. We take care of the whole process, all this while keeping a very close communication with our customers.
This takes away the hassle of having to find the right engineering team, finding the right Contract Manufacturer, and ultimately, the work it takes putting it all together.
Developing a product can be a daunting enterprise, especially if you´re not an engineering oriented person as this can create a problem when working with an engineering team as it´s hard to tell whether they´re doing a good job and using your resources correctly or if they´re not moving ahead or taking the product in the wrong direction. Communication and understanding is key. That´s why part of our services is the strong personal communication with our customers.
Whether you require to design a new product, prototype an already existing design or create new electronic hardware, or having precise production costs for your idea, Nearshore Hardware Product Development might be the best option for you. IDW Industrial will partner with you to ensure project success and to speed up the process of making your product come to life.