Design Theatre – Life in the Product Design Trenches

I am excited to announce that I will be appearing on a panel called “Getting It Built” at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt event in New York City.  The subject matter should be something along the lines of a live Q&A, not dissimilar to the comment dialogs that my recent posts have evoked here and on CrunchGear.com.  If you’ve found these posts interesting and  you’re in the NYC area next week, I would look forward to meeting you at the event.

Part III of the Going It Alone series will answer the question: What is a factory and how can I tell one from another?  I will answer the question from a consumer electronics perspective and I will assume an audience that has little or no prior knowledge of manufacturing.  The purpose of this article will be to try to introduce the burgeoning entrepreneur to the basic components of electronics manufacturing in China.

I will do this in the context of manufacturing the simple electronic product shown below – a digital kitchen timer that we call the Klip!.  This is an item that we sell at The Container Store chain and at gourmet stores across the United States.  I chose this product because, while relatively simple, it still encompasses all of the major facets (noted in the white boxes) of manufacturing a mass-produced electronic item of greater complexity.  I’ll start with a little background, then I’ll give a very basic overview of each manufacturing sub-process and I’ll conclude with a summary that will serve to make your first visit to a third-party manufacturing facility more effective and productive.  Armed with the knowledge from this post you should be able to walk into an Asian plant for the first time and have the basic working knowledge that you need to converse intelligently about the creation of your item.

Read the rest of this entry »