标签: product

I have worked with more than 100 component companies, many developing new innovations in semiconductors and related electronics. Given this, I've experienced many unique situations that have created opportunities and challenges for a successful product launch. Based on many successes (and a few missteps), below are 10 key questions to consider when bringing a new product to market. 1. Who exactly are your customers and what are their decision processes? For many companies, product design may occur in the United States, often in collaboration with Asian manufacturers. But there are often centres of expertise in other geographies, such as Russia or Israel. Your key customers may number only 10 or 20 companies, so you need to understand with almost forensic detail their decision making process. 2. What is your new product's value proposition? Think about whether the new product represents a new capability, adds functionality to an existing product, and/or represents a basic-level, lower-cost model; and think also about positioning versus current and anticipated competitors. 3. Who are your new product's real and perceived competitors? While this seems obvious to you, to your customers and potentially others in a value chain the answer to this question may be more nuanced. Your customers might be looking at other products that include the feature set of your product, or looking at other products that could act as a substitute for yours. 4. What is your product's market potential? Media and analysts will often ask about the product's market potential in terms of current and future revenues. It's often valuable to quantify your estimates with one or more outside observers. 5. Where is your product in the value chain, and will your new product alter that value chain? If your new product disrupts an existing value chain by, for example, eliminating one phase of the chain, you have a greater challenge. You may now compete with existing customers and sell to a new group of customers. 6. When do you plan to launch your product? While your most important customers may attend the large tradeshows, you may be able to get more "quality time" with them at smaller tradeshows, niche conferences, or through one-on-one meetings. Consider announcing your launch at a time different from the tsunami of announcements that take place the first day of a large tradeshow. Resist the temptation and pressure from your board, customers, and others. Don't launch your product prematurely just to time its launch to coincide with a tradeshow—or any other event, for that matter. 7. What's the role of industry analysts? Industry analysts can be an important sounding board for your new product's market positioning and provide an outside, objective perspective. Many will discuss their take on your market opportunities and their view of your new product. 8. What's the role of media? The primary role of media is to report on news and trends. It's important to understand their interests, availability, and how they like to receive information. Your marketing team should focus on building relationships with key editors, not simply contacting them during product launches. 9. What is my announcement chronology? While every launch is different, there are a few key activities that will help ensure success: * Organise briefings under NDA with the most influential analysts and media 5 to 10 days prior to a launch. * Optimise release timing for key market(s); e.g., Asia time if launching at an Asian tradeshow. * Distribute press release on launch day and email release to targeted industry analysts and media. * Share via social media if appropriate, maybe using teasers on social media to get people excited leading up to announcement. * Consider using email blasts to alert key customers/prospects. * Analyse resulting leads and coverage to evaluate quality of message penetration. For example, did the lead flow meet expectations? Did coverage reflect the message communicated in the press release and website? 10. How do I know my launch was a success? It's important to establish metrics prior to the launch process that will allow decision makers to determine the ROI. For many, basic metrics include short-term sales uplift, long-term sales uplift, and contribution to brand building. Product launches are often critical periods in the evolution of a company. Conducting relevant research, creating key messaging, organising core activities well in advance, executing aggressively, and evaluating results versus metrics contribute to ensuring success. Tim Johnson is President of Stearns Johnson Communications, a marketing and PR agency that works with both start-ups and established companies.  

When we bought the used signs online, it seemed like a good deal until we realised there were no instructions included. Anyone like me working in an operations centre knows that we'll never be given the resources required to truly do our jobs well. In a real sense, we are the redheaded stepchildren of technology, although perhaps I should rephrase that out of deference to my own family members with red hair. What I will say is that with extremely limited budgets, those of us who work in operations centres are constantly forced to find new ways to do things as cheaply as possible. That was certainly the case with a request to set up "wallboards" in our area. Management wanted to use these small, LED dot-matrix signs to display concise, "state of the company" messages so that people walking through our area would know they were on hallowed ground. At the very least, the hope was that the signs would give people the warm fuzzy feeling that they were truly in an operations centre. Cue the circus. A colleague found some used signs on eBay for a screaming deal, which in retrospect should have immediately thrown up a red flag. We got the signs and opened them up, only to discover that they could only be programmed through the use of an infrared remote, which wasn't included. We immediately flipped one over to look up the information on the back of the sign and found a nice, wonderful... complete void of programming code. The manufacturer had merely listed specifications for a communication protocol. We had no code, and we had no tools. Knowing that engineers are more likely to figure something out when they are told a task is impossible, we made it into a competition. Whoever figured out how to reprogram the signs would get to take one home. The gauntlet was thrown down, a lot of tries were made, but no forward progress was seen. And then the big revelation came: We let all of the smoke out of one of the signs. Someone referred to it as the sign getting "fried," but everyone knows that electronics run on smoke, and when you let all of the smoke out the electronics quit. Suddenly, things were looking up—who wouldn't want a broken sign? We cracked it open and determined that the chips used for communications were okay. We threw in some replacement inductors, after cracking open a second sign to see what values to use. Some tools would have been really handy here. The broken sign was operational again, but we quickly realised the maximum length of the message was limited compared to the other signs. Thinking this was a result of fried EEPROM, we cracked the sign open again and gave it a visual inspection. The black circuit boards were all on the RS232 end of things. It looked like we didn't let the smoke out of the EEPROMS. We had something else happening, and we didn't yet know what. This forced us to revisit the manufacturer's manual, which turned out to be not much more than a nice RS232 communication specification sheet. Luckily, we happened across someone who had written a limited Perl script, but it was more than we'd seen up until then. A few quick hacks later, and we had some clean C code to communicate with the sign. I personally like C because I can port it into a few different services. A few test runs and trials, and the broken sign looked to be up and running. The next step was to program ('programme' for plan) the other signs, and things looked golden over there, too. So for the cost of a screaming deal on eBay, our troubleshooting time, a few inductors, some coding time, and the remaining shreds of sanity that I lost, we now have it all: a warm, fuzzy-feeling-inducing work area that has become the "show off" place to bring new employees, members of the board, partners, and vendors. We have graduated from being stepchildren to core members of the nuclear family. The downside to all of this is that more people are now hovering around my desk, and it means I have to talk to some of them. Perhaps if the signs disappeared, that problem could be solved. Anyone want to buy some used wallboard signs? I'll give you a good deal, code included! Joe Lewis, a Linux engineer at overstock.com, shared this story as a submission to Frankenstein's fix, a design contest hosted by EE Times (US).  

We thought buying used signs online was a good deal until we figured there were no instructions included. Anyone like me working in an operations centre knows that we'll never be given the resources required to truly do our jobs well. In a real sense, we are the redheaded stepchildren of technology, although perhaps I should rephrase that out of deference to my own family members with red hair. What I will say is that with extremely limited budgets, those of us who work in operations centres are constantly forced to find new ways to do things as cheaply as possible. That was certainly the case with a request to set up "wallboards" in our area. Management wanted to use these small, LED dot-matrix signs to display concise, "state of the company" messages so that people walking through our area would know they were on hallowed ground. At the very least, the hope was that the signs would give people the warm fuzzy feeling that they were truly in an operations centre. Cue the circus. A colleague found some used signs on eBay for a screaming deal, which in retrospect should have immediately thrown up a red flag. We got the signs and opened them up, only to discover that they could only be programmed through the use of an infrared remote, which wasn't included. We immediately flipped one over to look up the information on the back of the sign and found a nice, wonderful... complete void of programming code. The manufacturer had merely listed specifications for a communication protocol. We had no code, and we had no tools. Knowing that engineers are more likely to figure something out when they are told a task is impossible, we made it into a competition. Whoever figured out how to reprogram the signs would get to take one home. The gauntlet was thrown down, a lot of tries were made, but no forward progress was seen. And then the big revelation came: We let all of the smoke out of one of the signs. Someone referred to it as the sign getting "fried," but everyone knows that electronics run on smoke, and when you let all of the smoke out the electronics quit. Suddenly, things were looking up—who wouldn't want a broken sign? We cracked it open and determined that the chips used for communications were okay. We threw in some replacement inductors, after cracking open a second sign to see what values to use. Some tools would have been really handy here. The broken sign was operational again, but we quickly realised the maximum length of the message was limited compared to the other signs. Thinking this was a result of fried EEPROM, we cracked the sign open again and gave it a visual inspection. The black circuit boards were all on the RS232 end of things. It looked like we didn't let the smoke out of the EEPROMS. We had something else happening, and we didn't yet know what. This forced us to revisit the manufacturer's manual, which turned out to be not much more than a nice RS232 communication specification sheet. Luckily, we happened across someone who had written a limited Perl script, but it was more than we'd seen up until then. A few quick hacks later, and we had some clean C code to communicate with the sign. I personally like C because I can port it into a few different services. A few test runs and trials, and the broken sign looked to be up and running. The next step was to program ('programme' for plan) the other signs, and things looked golden over there, too. So for the cost of a screaming deal on eBay, our troubleshooting time, a few inductors, some coding time, and the remaining shreds of sanity that I lost, we now have it all: a warm, fuzzy-feeling-inducing work area that has become the "show off" place to bring new employees, members of the board, partners, and vendors. We have graduated from being stepchildren to core members of the nuclear family. The downside to all of this is that more people are now hovering around my desk, and it means I have to talk to some of them. Perhaps if the signs disappeared, that problem could be solved. Anyone want to buy some used wallboard signs? I'll give you a good deal, code included! Joe Lewis, a Linux engineer at overstock.com, shared this story as a submission to Frankenstein's fix, a design contest hosted by EE Times (US).

          Analysis for the above product list as below: 1. Package: WBFBP-02L,DFN1006,DFN1006DN,SOD-923,DFN1006T3 2. Solder size: the same as package 0402, except DFN1006T3 (for this item, 0402 solder size should divided into two roads and one piece can be used as two pieces) 3. Voltage range: 3.3V,5V,6V,7V,8V,12V,15V,24V,36V 4. IEC61000-4-2 (ESD) ±30kV (air), ±30kV (contact)， Polymer ESD just reach IEC61000-4-2 (15KV air, 8KV contact discharge) 5. Capacitance: can be low to 0.35pf, two way 6. Power: UP to 250W, package 0402, power:250w, Only leiditech has this package technology in the market. 7. Surge protection ability: up to 10A 8. Clamping Voltage: close to VB, better than Polymer ESD series. 9. Single road and two-road for options 10. Applications : data transmission port, including RS-485,RS-232, CANBUS, I/O，HDMI and so on.

The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money. For example, in a  NASA moon shot, money is abundant but lightness is scarce; every ounce of weight requires tons of material below. On the design of a beach vacation home, the limitation may be your ocean-front footage. You have to make sure your whole team understands what scarce resource you’re optimizing. —  Fred Brooks , author of  The Design of Design .   Product requirements are growing complex by the day. Organising the design process pays rich dividends at a later stage. There are quite a number of interesting applications which can help a designer , particularly an electronics engineer in organising the design process. Planning: Openproj  is a project management software which can help one schedule the timelines of a project.  Task oriented scheduling with individual timelines is possible while marking important tasks as milestones. Schedules are simultaneously converted into Gantt Charts, where the tasks and their timelines are pictorially represented. All we need to do is break the design process into smaller tasks and enter them in an organised manner. URL : http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/ Flow Chart/UML/Block Diagram: yEd Graph Editor is a fantastic tool for flowcharts. Hardware block diagrams as well as software flowcharts can be drawn. The user interface is very easy. URL : http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_download.html Diagram Designer is another nice app for flowcharts. Apart from flowcharts, we can load various palettes which contain templates and symbols as necessary. A special mention must be made about Electronic Display Devices palette which contains nicely laid out Seven Segment Displays and even a dot matrix LED display. URL : http://logicnet.dk/DiagramDesigner/ Enclosure Modelling: Sketchup from Google is a 3D mechanical drawing software which could be used for designing enclosures and mechanical items. Sketchup is already popular amongst Design Spark users and needs no further introduction. http://sketchup.google.com/ With Cetina , the front panel  cut-outs can be designed to exact dimensions.  Designing slots for SD Cards, LCD Displays, etc can be done with ease.  http://www.frontpanelexpert.com/ Rack Designer is an interesting tool which provides a VB like interface where we could physically drag down various user interface components such as Buttons, LEDs and LCD Displays. You could even add a scope display. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Other-Programming-Files/Rack-De... With the help of above and similar tools, the design process can become less cumbersome while reducing the time-to-market.