New product development

ITCM has a proven track record in helping customers to develop and launch new products quickly and ahead of the competition. Whatever your dreams or ideas, we can help turn them into reality. To do this we use a tried-and-tested new product development (NPD) process that ensures products are commercially viable and optimised for manufacture.

We facilitate or take part in client brainstorming sessions, providing fresh ideas based upon our experience in many different market sectors. We add value by bringing an early manufacturing perspective to new concepts, helping to rank and filter out the best ideas for further investigation. Existing products are also enhanced using this process, for example, by improving the product with new features that make it easier to use, more attractive on the shelf or lower cost to produce.

ITCM then helps to drive good ideas forward by developing designs, investigating and selecting materials and producing mock-ups. We then manufacture production-quality samples that can be used in consumer trials and market testing. These are often produced using semi-automated, low volume equipment, which is also used to prove high-risk manufacturing processes as a key input to the main machine design.

Design for manufacture

Fast-track product and machinery development should run in parallel and be closely coordinated with a multi-functional team, comprising typically people from Marketing, Packaging Development, Operations Engineering and ITCM engineers. ITCM adds valuable insight at an early stage, helping to optimise product design for commercial manufacture and to highlight potential pitfalls. Another major benefit of this approach is the obvious reduction in the time required to launch a new product to market. Working sequentially, the time required is significantly longer, and often requires late-stage design changes resulting in repeated effort and additional cost.

Consumer demand is driven by the right balance of function, usability and appeal of the product. Profitability for the manufacturer depends on the ability to produce the product in the right quantity at the right cost. Design for manufacture seeks to maximise profits by challenging the design team to create the simplest and most robust designs whilst preserving breakthrough features and not diminishing value to the end user.

Our central philosophy of risk management ensures that critical features of a product and difficult processes associated with its manufacture are isolated and addressed in a systematic manner. Our history of innovative solutions demonstrates that we are able to succeed with products and processes that are truly new and unique.