by Lina Martinez
If you're manufacturing your own product, you will often need to select the materials that you want to use. This is a huge task if you're manufacturing a product for the first time. You might not be making it yourself, but you still need to be able to know your product inside and out. Once you have made a prototype, you can start to explore your manufacturing options. To choose the right materials, you need to consider a number of different things. Take a look at some of the key steps that you should take when you're deciding which materials to use for your product.
Understand What Qualities You Need
The first thing you need to do is understand what requirements you have for your materials. If you know what your product is trying to achieve, you likely know some of the qualities that your materials have to have. For example, you might know if your materials need to be heatproof, flexible, rustproof, colorful, durable or anything else. Making a list of your requirements will help you to find a material that matches your needs. If you're searching for a number of materials, you might need to consider their individual requirements and how they fit together.
Consider Your Budget
Money is always important when you're making business decisions. When you're looking for the right materials for your product, you need to match the quality of the materials to your customers' budgets. You should know what sort of price level you want to offer your product at, and what sort of profit margin you want to set. You can find more affordable materials, like phenolic plastic that offers a lower price compared to some other expensive thermoplastics. You can talk to manufacturers about which options might be best to suit your budget. You might be able to compromise in some ways and spend more on the most important materials.
Test Materials
Testing materials to see if they work for your product is an important step. It's not always possible to test materials extensively, but you should always do it when it is possible. Make sure you know what types of variables you want to test for so that you can carry out the right tests. You should look back at the requirements that you have for your materials so that you can get your priorities right for your product.
Get Independent Opinions
You should try to get independent and objective opinions when assessing your materials so that you can get results that will please your customers. Your target users should really be the ones testing your products so that you can gather opinions that matter most. You don't need to have a huge testing group, but it helps to have five to ten people who can test your product for you. Getting real people to use your product will highlight any flaws that might miss.
When you choose the materials that you want to use for your product, make sure you know what you should be looking for, and do plenty of testing.
