Creative design process
The first step in any design and development project is to consult with the client and define the project as far as possible in terms of design creativity, tooling investment and product performance parameters.
In most cases TQ generates its own design brief for the project after indepth discussion with the client. This brief will set out a product development plan for the first phase (concept creation) of the project. Again in most cases this will become more refined as the project progresses; this approach enables us to supply a fixed price quotation for the creation and development of the product concept and again later for the mechanical design and engineering stages.
Our primary aim must be to give our customers a competitive advantage by utilising all the expertise at our disposal. This consists not only of creativity resulting from many years' training and development but also an extensive knowledge of manufacturing processes and materials technologies, enabling us to achieve the optimum added value solution within available budgets.
Initial concept creations are produced as traditional pen and pencil sketches. We may produce up to 50 or more design concepts initially, however we refine these down to single figures and rework these for presentation of 'first wave' concepts and initial product assembly ideas to our client. Normally three or four concepts are chosen for development into a more detailed design. At this stage we may produce 3-D CAD surface models of these concepts and render them to a photorealistic standard so that the customer has a paper product concept that he/she can distribute to internal development staff.
After a final design and development meeting for this stage of the project TQ will develop a single concept that may contain some of the detailing elements preferred on one or more of the other variants submitted. Once this final concept proposal has been accepted we can then move on to the detailed mechanical design and engineering of the product; if relevant we will also design and develop the PCBA's and other internal components as required for volume manufacture.