Electronic Product Development

All great products start with an idea, but not all ideas make great products. The  Idea phase includes research into the commercial viability of the potential product. P3A Star can help you start asking the right questions:

How will the product pay back the development cost and make a profit?

After signing a confidentiality agreement, we promise to give you valuable feedback based on our experience and passion for developing electronic products.

The next step is to answer the most critical question: What makes this product ‘fit for purpose’?

The simplest answer is known as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It is better to solve one problem well, than trying to do many things for everyone.

In the Concept phase P3A Star will narrow down the best options and technology choices for the product idea. We work closely with our clients to generate a clear set of requirements that forms the basis of the product.

P3A Star can develop a Proof of Concept prototype to find the best solution for your customers and detect any hidden flaws in the process.

After the concept design, we define the technical specifications for the prototype. The majority of the design work happens in the prototype phase so clarity is essential to provide the best value and outcome possible. Late changes and ‘feature-creep’ will delay the result and add unbudgeted costs to the project.

Utilising over 30 years of electronic design experience, P3A Star takes the concept design and specification to develop a prototype that is close to the final product.

At the end of the design stage we will review the prototype design in detail to ensure high quality, utilising our partnerships with external engineers and experts. With the design completed we build a small number of prototype units in-house or at a local manufacturer.

P3A Star carries out testing in conjunction with our clients. Firstly, we need to verify that the prototype meets the technical specification. This is a test regime that P3A Star can perform in-house.

Secondly, our clients need to validate that the prototype is ‘fit for purpose’ for your intended user. Often this is done in a field test where a number of units are given to selected users for first-hand feedback on how they like the product and its performance.  Depending on the application this stage can be quite extensive or relatively short.

At P3A Star, we pride ourselves on designing prototypes that require minimal design changes for volume production. This gets our clients to market faster.

Collating all the feedback from the previous testing stages, we make any required design changes to optimise the product for production. Pilot production is a small scale production run at the chosen manufacturer. This includes setting up a quality test regime to ensure that all production units meet performance criteria. Typically the production pilot units will be tested against certification requirements such as EMC and electrical safety.

We work closely with local manufacturers to ensure what we design can be made on large scale while still being commercially competitive. After the Pilot Production run we assess the need to fine-tune any design elements in order to optimise the product, its performance and cost.  To prepare for volume product we focus on processes, and management of the product flow from production to client to their customers.

Every product on sale will require support. We can assist you from generating user manuals, to setting up service levels, to managing troubleshooting and repair. Ultimately every product will undergo life cycles that involve improvements, bug fixes and functional upgrades. Some of these changes can be handled by software and firmware updates, other will result in product upgrades and variants depending on the market and application.

At P3A Star we value our long time relationships with our clients, sharing the pride in assisting their product range to continually grow and evolve as they consolidate their position as market leaders.