Visualizing New Products With The Prototype

In the first stages of the design process, the prototype of a new product helps in the visualization of its appearance, its uses and limitations.

Often, engineers and design teams will use a working prototype to determine the best materials for a product, the surface design they wish, and the safety issues and durability of the product as it is at that stage in the process.

Many times, a new prototype is of such good quality it can be used in presentations to customers or investors.

The prototype of a new product may also be used for testing to discover any flaws in the design or construction. During prototype development, the trial product is often tested under extreme conditions to see if any problems or safety issues will arise.

This is an accepted part of the design process because most manufacturers would rather discover these flaws or safety issues early in the design process as opposed to after the product has been released for sale.

The prototype of a new product can be expensive to produce. When you take into account the fact that a prototype is developed, then tested, then modified, then developed again, then tested again, and so on, the cost of repeating the process several times can become rather high.

Most manufacturers now practice something called rapid prototyping. A rapid prototype machine, which uses selective laser sintering, allows them to make low quality replicas of the entire product, or high quality prototypes of just the specific parts of the new product that they wish to test. This is a great time and money-saver.

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