Engineers face a challenge when presenting the product concept they are building to stakeholders (managers, clients, investors, or board members) who need to understand and approve how it works. Explaining functional aspects of the conceptualized design using simulations, debuggers, or even CAD models often ends up with “can you prove it?” questions at a product concept stage.
Is quite common that engineers struggle with adoption of their proposed ideas as stakeholders want evidence that the design will succeed. The more radical and bold the proposed solution is, the bigger a problem for the designer. Here is where Rapid Prototyping comes in: it is a stage in the Product Development process that helps to build working models (usually using development boards or kits) to experiment and detect faults or problems in advance; also to test and analyze the performance of the proposed features through different environments and conditions.
During each iterative test of the emerging prototype with the user, the Rapid Prototyping process generates little bits of data that stakeholders can see and gain confidence from; engineers will see the reaction of the users become ever more positive as their feedback is incorporated into the next iteration and the next, and the next, and the next, and so on. Stakeholders become more confident with the design as the users are more pleased.
Rapid Prototyping is opening innovation as it is both guidance in creating (and implementing) new ideas and proof of concept with real users; they bring new opportunities for disruption in several industries due to their:
- Fast way to realize the potential of a product. Working with enablement tools to create reliable product concepts: software methodologies with reuse of embedded code and affordable hardware with the flexibility to implement more than one solution on the same platform.
- Product development cost-reduction. Saving time between the initial design and quickly bring a functional product to market, allowing to gain a competitive advantage ahead of competitors.
- Usability consideration and iteration. Identifying design faults and getting feedback from potential users; incorporating that usability data into later stages of product development to make modifications and improve the building process.
NXP offers flexible and robust rapid prototyping solutions for industrial and automotive engineers, both in both hardware and software:
- Ultra-Reliable MCUs Development Platforms: a cost-effective 32-bit MCUs and 16-bit evaluation and development platforms for quick application, prototyping, and demonstration of innovative engineering product concepts. These Development Platforms provide an easy-to-use mass-storage device mode flash programmer, virtual serial port, classic programming, run-control capabilities, and rich dedicated specific features on each platform.
- Model-Based Design tools: offering Integrated Development Environments (IDE), toolchains, run-time software, and customization services to execute complex applications. Some toolboxes include integrated Simulink and MATLAB resources, also Math and Motor Control libraries to provide Software and Processor-in-the-Loop (SIL and PIL) simulations, enabling fast prototyping, verification, and validation.
Using Rapid Prototyping as part of the product design and development process is a profitable decision as it helps to develop innovative and cost-effective products.