Large industrial product suppliers sell what they make. These companies became large because they provided equipment that many customers found useful. But as manufacturers become large, they also become bureaucratic. Ironically, new product development, the source of the company’s success in the beginning, becomes overwhelmed with complexity that causes lead time to market to expand to years.
Product development involves teams of engineers and product marketing managers. The decision making process to decide what new product project or feature requires 6 months to a year. Once approved the initial engineering and prototyping process can begin. With any luck it’s a year to first prototype, then there’s the focus group, engineering revision, qualification for manufacturing, agency certification which can take six months to a year on its own. You get the idea.
On the opposite side is the customer. The world of manufacturing is changing rapidly. The Industrial Internet of Things is a major force of change as it introduces inexpensive communications capability that can network and report data on operations to authorized users anywhere and at anytime. In the presence of this capability, customers are finding important ways to exploit hardware and software technology to add value to their operations. This requires suppliers of control technology to update products to make their products easier to implement.
这为将控制技术提供给工业世界的公司提供了问题。基于前面提出的模型，新产品开发的成本极高，这为更新创造了障碍。
所有这些都造成了艰难的局面。在控制领域，收入是新产品的结果，产品是创新的，反映了市场的新兴需求。
The point of the maker movement is to reduce barriers to implementing new products. Similarly the controls world needs to undergo massive change that is beginning to take place. Sensor vendors, for example, have begun updating their products to include wireless networks of various types.
Part of the challenge is creating the right strategy for developing new products. One element of a successful strategy will be segmentation. Segmentation is required in order to address particular markets, but segmentation can also be used as a means of facilitating to the development process itself. Many products can be divided up into incremental steps that involve lower complexity and shorter development cycles.
为了为行业重新发明自己，很多事情都必须改变。最大的挑战是努力完成。
Filed Under:Mechatronic Tips
