The Engineering Design For Manufacturing Viewpoint with Dennis Shaver and David Recker

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Hey there, product launchers. I have an interesting episode for you. This one's a little different. It's from our expert, Dennis Shaver.

And.

And Dennis is products on demand, and he has a engineering viewpoint, but he decided to do a prerecorded video for you of his engineer where he could ask him questions. And I think this is really critically important because both of them have an inventor mindset, so they get where they're coming from, where you want to bring a lot of inventiveness and originality and innovation to the table. But how do you get that from your idea all the way through that engineering and not have it cost too much and not have it be unmanufacturable? So they're bringing you that viewpoint today.

Hi there. My name is Dennis Shaver, and welcome to this summit, Invent, Promote Profit, where you'll learn from leading experts how they got their ideas from their mind to a design and eventually into a prototype so that they could get it out into the marketplace to reach its full potential. And that, of course, is profitability. With us today, I have a guest that I've known for quite some time. In fact, he's done a lot of work for my company in designing products for our aspiring inventors.

My name is David Recker. I've been involved in product development for a good 40 years.

40? Wait a minute. I thought you were 28.

Right, 10 years. Some of my best solutions have been come from just stepping back and saying, okay, how else could I do this? And boom, all of a sudden, it comes to you. And that's where I live. That's what I love to do. So that's. That's what I live for. Is that inspiration, that little thing that just says, aha? Sure, yeah. Every project is different. So it is really understanding what is it you're trying to achieve. Okay. And the most important question is who you serve. And any product idea is serving somebody. So what is who you serve? And it's, how do you go about saying, okay, with my idea? How am I doing? So it may be you have to go out and look for experts in that field or even talking to people that are in that field or finding vendors that have A particular expertise. There's no simple answer to that. It's when you. You want to always align yourself with people who are gonna listen to what you're saying to really add to what you're doing. Because there isn't anything, any idea that can go from idea to product in just one step. So it's like, how do you keep iterating and making it better? How can you draw in people, the right people that are willing to add to that product? Seems a little obscure, but there's no magic formula. Sure. So it's a matter of finding those people, those vendors, those resources that seem to really understand what you're doing and are willing to be a helpful hand.

David, you come to us with many years of experience in engineering, and there's different titles of engineering. So can you sort of elaborate on what your passion and your desire and your focus is on helping aspiring entrepreneurs with the type of engineering support that you're able to offer?

Yes, it's really a design process, and it's starting with brainstorming. For example, somebody comes to me and says, I've got this idea. And one of the first steps is to sit down and say, okay, how can we implement this idea? How do you see this being done? And you come up with thousands of ideas, and no idea is a bad idea. But what's important to do is kind of write those down and say, okay, we could do this. What if that. What if it was this color? What if it was that? What if it did this? So that brainstorming becomes a really important process. So the next phase would be conceptual development that would be taking those brainstorming ideas and trying to funnel those down into a number of concepts that says, okay, what if I did this? What if I do that? This incorporates this number of features. Maybe this is too many features. Maybe I can defeat that, make it a little bit more simple.

Sure.

So you kind of have a breadth from sort of what you'd expect to see to something that's a little bit more off on guard, and there's something always in the middle. So in that conceptual design phase, what I always find inspiring is that you're looking for something you didn't expect. It's like pushing that idea one step further so a couple more steps further. And that conceptual design phase allows you to narrow down what you're going to do. And that's where you sort of stepping off point of how you start an engineering phase.

They need to better understand what you mean by the conceptual stage. And I would like to Share with them how we can help them prepare. Prepare meaning like what do they need to do to come to a professional like you in engineering? Be as prepared as possible so that they can get their point across to you. So you know how to help them get that idea from their mind to. To an official design.

Well, if you look at the roadmap that you've outlined, it's really important to do research. So number one, you have to have a good idea what your concept is. What is your product idea?

Right.

So what are you trying to do? Who are you trying to serve? Second, you got to do the research that who else is doing. Having products out in the same area that can be done so many different ways and it needs to be thorough. Google, ebay, United States Patent Office, a number of different things to understand what your product is, who else is in that marketplace. So that very intense research is really critical to have before you can start engineering phase. So you have a really good idea where this is placed in the marketplace and what you're trying to accomplish.

So research first is key, and research first find it out. Pretty much what I call a sweat equity, where you just. What would be an example? Let's say, for example, David, we have this coffee cup here, and this person wants to create a new type of a design of this lid, pretty much like this lid, but it's at least 10 to 15% different. So what would they do in a scenario like this where there's lids already out in the marketplace, but. And there's also markets for these lids, so what would they do to come prepare to you?

Well, the thing would be to do is to document all the different types of lids that are out there and who's manufacturing those lids and what are all the different designs. And if I were them, I'd be buying each every one of those lids and saying, okay, what's good about this one? What's bad about that? You know, and really document that and really know and be very clear. Why do I need another copy lid? Because obviously there's a number of them out there and a very successful lid design could be the next big thing. Sure. So, but again, it's really knowing who else is out in the marketplace. And is this a marketplace that has room for you to come out with a new lid?

Sure. So in essence, a situation like this, you not only could do what you said with get the lids that are already out there in the marketplace. You mentioned earlier about research, they could actually research about what people are giving for feedback about the correct lids in the marketplace. And that feedback might be positive and that feedback might be constructive or negative. And all of that is very valuable.

It is.

And especially with an engineer to share that with you. Yes.

And so what you want to do is you take, if I'm starting a project, I know all that, it gives me a place to start from and not reinvent something that's already out there.

Right.

So it's a potentially a cost savings in the long run having done all that research.

Okay. So then we've done our research as an aspiring inventor and we bring that to you. And that could be in the form of crude prototypes, to photos of something that looks sort of like it to what's already on the market, and then bring that to you all, as well as having a structure, objectives of what I'm striving for, the benefits of it, everything I can find out about it. But be able to get it all on one page, perhaps.

Correct. But it's very important to have that competitive marketplace research. It's very important to really define what you're trying to do. So what is different about your idea? And it doesn't mean that that is going to be set in stone because part of this process is going out and developing. How can you stretch this idea, be open to new ideas around this particular product idea?

Can you give us an example of what this lid here that we're talking about?

Well, say for instance, do I want to make that a disposable lid or do I want to make that something that's reusable? How am I impacting the environment by making those choices? Do I want to make it spill proof or do I want to make it less expensive? What exactly is my goal?

Sure.

So it's really defining that. And you can come up with a lot of different things just with that particular lid. You want it to be something that's more ergonomic, Is it something that is more environmentally friendly? There's all kinds of different ways to approach that.

Sure. And when they come to see you, David, do they. It's probably appropriate that they would bring a non disclosure agreement or unless they have applied for, say a provisional patent application, they would probably want to have an NDA, even though we keep everything confidential. But to be prepared, you might want to have an NDA in place. Correct.

As a professional, I would keep that trust with a client no matter what.

Of course.

But it's important for an inventor to have an NDA so he can keep the process of intellectual property in the right order. So that he's not disclosing publicly what the idea is. So the purpose of the NDA is to say, okay, you can't disclose anything about my idea, so that when I go through my intellectual property process of doing a patent that hasn't been disclosed publicly and somebody else is doing the same thing.

Sure.

So it helps protect you. It's an important thing. Protection, sure. It's an easy way to do it. And anybody who is not willing to sign an NDA, don't disclose. It's that simple? It's that simple.

Yes. So we've done. Our aspiring inventor has done their research. They have all this information. They're at this phase where you're talking about the conceptual side of it. So what is it that you do at this point as an engineer to help that aspiring inventor at this stage? What is it you would deliver to them when they come to you with an idea in the conceptual stage?

Well, I like to involve my clients in this process, that conceptual design phase, and that what I do is I'll go out and do a number of different sketches, other product examples, but mostly it's just a free form of saying, what if you do this, what if you do that? Nothing cast in concrete, but it's just saying, okay, what if we did this with this idea? What if we just push that a little bit more? Instead of looking at it in just one way, you're looking at it 10 different ways.

Right.

10 different perspectives.

So at that point, you're probably trying to get into their head and find out exactly what their idea is to get as close as possible to what the finished product would look like in a conceptual design.

Well, in the conceptual design phase, you're not really worried about how the final product is.

Right.

You want to think about it in a number of different ways. It's like if it's something that's held in the hand, how important are the ergonomics to this? In most cases, you want to be very cognizant of how this is being used, one from a performance standpoint and two, from a safety standpoint. And so in this phase, you're not really worried about all those really finite details. It's just making sure you've covered all the bases and thinking about this different idea. So it's just a way to expand the idea, take it 1, 2, 3, 4 more steps beyond what you thought it might be.

What I like about the concept conceptual stage here is that when you get your idea and you want to be able to go to a designer and have Them at least create some renderings or concepts, as I noticed with you, David, is that, let's say, for example, I want to get this coffee lid here, I want to have a new style of a coffee lid. And so what you provide me is that you provide me several different concepts that are different perspectives, so to speak, of this idea. And then I as the inventor can look at and say, ooh, I like option A a lot. But David, could we add under the feature on the one side of it here, an option C? Put that under option A and combine that.

And that's so great about that conceptual design phase is you can take those different features from different concepts and combine them a more cohesive design.

Right.

So the next step is to take all those different ideas and put them into. You don't really need to have it down to just one particular idea at that point. It's. You want to go to sort of the next phase where you're actually refining the design.

Sure.

And part of that is saying, okay, at that point you're looking at, how am I going to manufacture this? Is this injection molded part? Is this, in the case of a lid here, vacuum form process? Is it a sheet metal? Is it a machining? Is it a injection molded metal? There's so many different ways. So you want to kind of think about, okay, is this a high production thing, high volume thing? Do I want to sell millions of these? Right. Or do I want to sell 500 of these? Very, very different approach. Oh, yeah. So it's really important to kind of know where this product is. So you want to have in the next phase sort of this idea of, okay, this is a product that I want to do 10,000 a year. In doing that, I'm going to approach it very differently than If I'm doing 10 of these a year.

Right.

And I'm going to approach it differently if I'm going to do 100 million of these a year. Those kind of considerations are very important about how you choices you make in the details of that product.

Okay, so then you're at the conceptual stage and we figured out that option A, B and C, we like A the best. And so now that's the concept features of B and C. Yes, yes.

Right, right.

And then they might change their mind after a while as well, because they're like, oh, what about this, what about that? So we're at the conceptual stage now and you've just delivered me the overall concept of it. Much like a new race car, they don't make the race car Officially, the way it should look like they do some concepts of it, it's just a concept. So now we take that concept as an aspiring inventor and they want to go to that next stage and that is to get to an official design. Because I need to be able to get. I need to be able to find out the cost to manufacture it or to make a prototype so I can take the prototype out into the marketplace. So what's that next step? Once they've chosen that conceptual design that fits what they're looking for, what do you do next?

Well, it's really a design refinement.

Okay.

And that's where you start to utilize CAD tools to start actually building the product. Cad?

Just so you know what the CAD means. Oh yeah.

Computer Aided Design.

Yes.

And it's just a tool and it's a way to visualize the part with all the features that it needs to be able to be manufactured.

Sure.

And it's a terrific tool. And in today's world, what happens is that CAD file could go directly to like a 3D printed part or a machine part or it can be used to cut a injection molded tool, that same file. So it's a really important tool. But it's not. Just because you have this model, this part modeled in cad doesn't mean it's manufacturable.

Sure. And if I could add one thing there, so many people will come to myself, and I know you as well and say, I've got a patent and I'm all ready for you to identify the manufacturing costs for me. So they show you the patent and a lot of people are not aware of this, so they come to you with this patent and say, okay, I need to know what it's going to cost to make 5,000 parts a month to manufacture it. So can you share the void, what's missing here with what we'll call an illustration, as it's not a design, it's an illustration.

Yes. Just a conceptualization of the idea.

Right.

So in order to manufacture, you need to identify every single part in that product.

Yes.

And the only way that you can get manufacturing costs are to literally have those parts designed for manufacturing.

Mechanical design, Right?

Correct.

Yes.

But not everything is mechanical. There might be a circuit board involved, there might be some software involved, but to sort of be able to visualize this thing, it's really a mechanical design.

Sure.

And it depends on what the product is. It's such a wide variety.

Right.

And it's important to have somebody who is in tune with all the different Types of manufacturing processes.

Oh, yeah.

And to work with somebody who's got experience. Experience in that area, because it can have a great impact. Choice of process, choice of materials. I always want to be conscious of how is this impacting the environment. I like to use things that are biodegradable. I like to use things that can be recycled. It's not always the case. When you can. It's really important to have that stance.

Yes.

So to kind of clarify this a little bit more, it's like taking this lid, and I am going to actually model this lid exactly like this in my CAD system. And then with this data, basically a parametric data that says this is all the geometry of this cup. And with that data, I can now go and get, like, say, a 3D printed part to just kind of look at the concept.

Right. So with that said, an example is an adventure. You would not only bring the lid examples, you would also bring the mating part, the cup that it goes to as well. Yeah. Right. Okay.

And this is a good example because this impacts that.

It sure does.

And so does this need to be designed?

That's right.

Is this the product or is this the product?

Right.

A lot of people think this is the product. Right. Well, the experience for the user is this.

Yes.

So you have to take all of this under consideration.

Right?

Yeah.

So when you're looking for an engineer, there are many engineers out there. There's many different types of engineers out there. There's many different engineers with many different backgrounds out there. So to David's point here, if I could expand on it, is that what you want to look for in an engineer, a professional who has expertise in not only designing really cool designs, for example, the concepts. Because we have industrial engineers, I believe that's what you call them. Industrial design. Industrial designers who do the really beautiful look of a concept, but it may not be manufacturable. So it's important to make sure that once the concept is put together, that you go to a mechanical designer, if that's making a coffee lid, for example, coffee cup lid, is that you make sure that that person that you interview for doing the work for you has design for manufacturability experience. We call it DFM design for manufacturability. So I just want to make sure to make that clear.

Correct, right.

You want to expand on that.

Well, and that's a tough one because there are a lot of resources out there that could design a product but aren't aware of the manufacturing process.

Right.

And one of the things that in the product development that's so important is that understanding that you're touching a lot of different people. So with this product, you have to be able to say, okay, the ultimate judge of all this is the end user person who's going to buy this and you can do all the right things. And if they don't accept it, you're nowhere. So it's part of this process is to prototype as often as you can and get some feedback from the end customer so that you know that this is something that they're going to go for.

Yes.

So important. It's not just coming out with just a single design. There might be some iterations to that that's going to be more acceptable to the end user than what you expect. So never assume that you know what that end user is going to accept or not accept.

That's so true.

Yeah. So in this process to make it really simple, it's really the conceptual development, sort of the design refinement, where you can actually make parts and get that feedback. And then the next step is to make that is that sign for manufacturing. And my take on it is keep it simple. Always go for the simplest solution because the more complex you get, the more things can go wrong. And so it's finding somebody who knows those little nuances. And every product has these little nuances.

Right.

It's understanding what those nuances. It's like, how do you get all the right ingredients to make this same.

Right.

It's really important before you make huge commitments to the final design, is to do some prototyping of various different iterations of this to get feedback, to know that you're really going in the right direction.

That's a really good point. In fact, going back to the coffee lid here, all we're doing is we're designing this lid in this scenario. So we could actually take the mechanical design that you provide me as an inventor and take that and get it 3D printed, perhaps, so that you can check a form fit and functionality verification.

Yeah, yeah. And I want to test it with end users to say, gosh, when I use this, is it going to drip all over me?

Right.

What's the comfort of this as I'm drinking out of it? If it's comfortable to me, is it comfortable to you? Those little subtle things that are so important to understand about your product. Right. The answer just isn't in the engineering product. The answer is in developing this, knowing that there are a lot of nuances and that's every product. There isn't a product out there that I've been involved in, that there isn't some little nuance that makes or breaks the product.

Right. So an example of the nuance could be, we're back to this coffee lid here. And we went out and we made the first prototype based on the design files you provided me. And by the way, when you get your design files from your mechanical designer, chances are you'll get, like David mentioned, 3D CAD files, computer aided Design files. And they can come in different outputs, like exported into, what's an example, IGES files. Iges.

And. Well, there are a number of different CAD products out there, and they all have a different kind of format.

Right.

But they all have standard formats. And it's really the important thing is the source file. And it's. What's important is that the inventor wants to own those source files and know that he owns those. So in part of the agreement that he needs to make with any person that gets any resource is that he owns those files.

Yes.

And there's situations where that doesn't happen. Right. And somebody can go in. Where this happens is where somebody thinks they're working with a vendor that's going to manufacture and they're doing the design work. They may find out this isn't the right vendor, the relationship doesn't proceed like you hope they would, and find out at the end that they don't own any of those files. That's scary.

Yeah.

And it happens.

Right? Right. So when the mechanical design files are ready, then you as an inventor can take those files anywhere to a manufacturer or a prototype house, prototype firm that 3D prints parts and take those engineering files, and they'll have your name on as well. You should have your name on the bottom of it. And whether it's personal, confidential, or whatever the confidentiality language is. And take those engineering files, you can either email them to a manufacturing facility or put them on some type of a thumb drive or something. So you can take it to that vendor and have them look at those files and they'll be able to know, based on those files, what they can do to provide you a quote to fabricate the parts from there. Right?

Yeah. And there's so many great techniques for prototyping these days. And a lot of them, you can download the files directly online and get a quote immediately on that, whether it be machining or 3D printed part, or even sheet metal or CNC machining. I mean, we live in an age where doing prototypes is so much easier than it used to be.

Oh, yeah.

And effective because you can actually really test directly using those parts.

Right.

We're talking about relatively sophisticated way to prototype. And there isn't anything wrong with doing cardboard prototypes as you're putting this together, Taking and modeling it in clay, taking it, cutting up cardboard, taking some plastic and cutting it up and gluing it together.

Styrofoam or material.

Yeah. So depending on what the product is, make it 3D as quick as you can. And I think the most important thing in this process is don't be concerned about failure.

Don't be concerned about failure. Yeah.

Because every time you fail, you learn something. It's an iterative process. You build on it. Right. And you can't expect this process to go in a straight line. It's not linear. It is like, oh, my God, I didn't think that. I didn't think of that.

Right.

Oh, well, now we have this problem. Now we have that problem. Solve this, you create another. But it's always knowing that you've got a lot of things to bring together to make it all work. Right. And it sounds intimidating, but it is part of the process. And you can have fun with that.

Absolutely. It's a fun journey, for sure.

And it's understanding that you're going to be good going through that process that you are going to fail. And don't worry about that. It's like, be prepared for that. And, okay, what can you learn from that? Because that gives you ammunition for the next thing. That's. Thomas Edison said it best. It's 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

Oh, yeah. We're always going like this out there, going, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do next?

But it's so true, that process.

Yes. And back to this design of the coffee lid. Let's say that the design is done with mechanical designer. You go to a 3D printer and you actually get that part printed and it's fabricated. And then you come back to David, the designer, and say, okay, this works great. But that little feature that goes up and down, it doesn't seem to be big enough. Well, who would know that until you try it out on a real part? So it could be a really good design. Yet when you fabricate the part, it may not feel just right. Maybe the ergonomics isn't right. Maybe it's not functioning the way you want it to function. So there's some iterations, as you mentioned earlier, and so many new inventors are like, okay, the design's done. I'm ready to Rock and roll. I'm ready to get some parts manufactured, fill my garage full of product, and sell like crazy. It's not that way. It's important to make sure you dial this in as close as possible. Fail forward, so to speak.

Right. That's a good term for doing it.

Yeah, yeah. Rather than getting all down and out because it's not working, it's like, find a way to evolve it. We had a client at one point where we did a design for, and you really don't know how that first part that's fabricated is going to function. And you can have a beautiful design, but when you actually make the product, you're going to find some flaws, you're going to find some changes that need to be done. So many people think, I got the product, I'm ready to go to the market. It's like, no, no, no. Take the time to do it right. Get as close as possible as you can to working out those bugs. Because the more time you invest in getting it as close as possible, being as perfect as possible, but it's not perfect, but it's constantly perfecting on a journey.

Another thing to add to this is that as you're designing this product, you need to really think about how all the people that touch this product along the line. So you've got some parts, but you have somebody who's going to assemble those parts. How's that going to happen? How does this all come together? And ease of assembly is just as important. And it's part of the design for manufacturing that you have something that you can assemble quickly, easily with the fewest amount of parts, but that also has to be shipped someplace else to be put in packaging, or it's put in the package at the manufacturer, but somebody's touching that to put it in the box. How's that experience? So then somebody has to put that on the shelf.

Right.

If you're distributing online, how's that package look online? There's so many people who touch this. Even the shipping person has to be able to put this in a box. That box may go on to a pallet. That pallet may go onto a truck or a ship or something like that. So you have to think about all those different things in order for this to be work itself through and be successful. Because each one of those steps can cause issues with the fundamental design.

Right.

So it's really thinking through all those different steps and understanding that, yes, you may have done all this thing correct, but the packaging's wrong. The packaging is 1cm too big. And now I can't put it in to a shipping box that can go onto a pallet that's efficient. I lose maybe three boxes or four boxes on a pallet because I didn't design the package right.

Oh, that's so true. In fact, that's a very good point. In fact, when you're getting. We also have another interview on power of the pitch, the elevator pitch, on your idea. And it's so important to have these things figured out ahead of time, especially with your designer to know, number one, how you're going to design for manufacturability. Two, you can take your design files and find out all the costs that are associated with getting that prototype made, getting the production made, getting the packaging made, getting it shipped, bulk packaging, everything. Pretty much you can find out by having that design or perhaps the prototype. So that when you go to do your pitch, you can just basically share a couple of words. You've already done the DFM files, a design for manufacturability files. We've got the packaging figured out from those files. And it just helps position you at a certain level that when you're doing your pitch with your potential target market, they know you've done your homework.

And most. Whether you're going for a licensing type agreement or you're going to some kind of financial resource, and there's so many of those. That's a whole nother discussion. You want to have that. What's called cost of goods. And part of that cost of goods is all your different parts, your assembly. Yes. Your packaging, your shipping box. And one thing that a lot of people forget about is tooling costs. Tooling. Yes.

Yeah.

Because if you.

Yeah. The coffee cup lid.

Coffee cup, this is a good example.

Been very helpful.

Yeah.

Bringing up a little higher. Yeah.

The coffee lid. Now this particular one is called the vacuum form process. But it requires a tool. Right. And that costs money. And what they'll do is they'll have a tool that has multiple pieces on this thing and you can influence the cost on how you. For every time the press comes down and makes one of these things, if you do one, it's very expensive and it's just.

Yeah. There's only a few parts you can do per hour, so to speak. The output. Correct.

Yeah. So if you're doing injection molding, that's another thing is if you just do one at a time, it's much more expensive than doing a multi cavity tool and doing 4, 8, 12, 64 or whatever. Whatever it is.

Yeah.

And all that has a cost associated with it.

Yes.

So, and there's strategies for how do I start in the market with the least amount of capital, which is always really important to make sure it goes. But what are my next steps to follow? Very quickly, okay, this is a success. Now I have to deliver. Okay, I've delivered 50 of these. Now they want me to deliver 5,000 or 100,000.

All of a sudden, now you're at a point where you've done the one cavity mold to keep your costs down, to go out and test market, and all of a sudden you're getting all these letters of intent, like, I really like your product, David, how and when can I get 10,000amonth?

Correct.

So to speak. So now the question, the question is.

Can you deliver this by then?

Right. I want it next week. Yeah.

So part of this, in saying this is that it's how do you anticipate the steps involved? One is initial release. How do I keep my costs down there? What's my next step? To really go and gear this up and ramp this up for higher production.

Right. And you can find out all these answers by using the engineering files. So. Right. I mean, take the engineering files. You can find out what the prototype costs are. You can find out what manufacturing costs are. Low volume, medium volume, extremely high volume. The turnaround time, if you're going to do it overseas or locally. What I think is the magic and the art of engineering when it comes to the mechanical design files is everything's there. Yeah.

That's the starting point.

Yes, indeed.

And to get to that starting point, you really need to have a group or an individual, an engineering resource that you really have confidence in and understands all these different nuances. Because if you deal with somebody that says, okay, I can produce you an engineering file and just gives that to you, it's not very helpful.

Especially when you take that engineering file and they've delivered and they wash their hands. Okay, I've done my job for you. And you take those engineering files to a manufacturing company. All of a sudden, the manufacturing company says, I have some questions about this design. There's a couple features we can't achieve with injection molding. But it's an injection molded part, right?

Yeah. And that brings up a very important point. When I'm developing a product, I'm always reviewing this with my vendors before I turn over the final file.

That's helpful.

And that is so important because they said, if you just do this, we can reduce the cycle time, which is reduces the cost. Right. If you just do that, they are so much experts on how they do something. So I feel like I'm an expert. But there's that working together that really makes it really work. Well, yes, very, very important that the engineering resource actually is involved with the manufacturer so that you can make those little tweaks. And it may be very subtle.

Yeah. In fact, you bring up a really good point here, is that when you're interviewing your potential mechanical engineers is to find out what resources do they have to get this design so that it's manufacturable. So in David's scenario, you probably say, well, I've worked in this business for many years, several decades, not trying to say what age you are, but I've worked in this industry for many decades and I've learned a lot. And what's important is that you have the engineers working with the manufacturers because this is that collaboration is what makes a product. The design successful is to collaborate. And you find this out while you're designing. You might come up with a part in that coffee cup lid that's like, oh, man, I don't know if we can achieve this with a large 64 cavity molds. We might need to change some features on it, Right?

Exactly, Exactly. Good.

So I could ask you questions all day on behalf of our listeners and I know that there will be other times to talk. So I do have one question on behalf of our listeners and that is, what is it that you would like to leave our listeners with about the importance of incorporating the most effective design into their invention so that they're on the right path to achieve their true potential with their idea.

I think the thing that's most important is to be open to feedback because without that, you'll have limited success, might get lucky and hit the home run. But I think it's so important to be very open to modifying that idea so it does become successful. And that can come from so many different sources. It's not just engineering. The most important feedback is from the end user. Oh, yes, you have to be open and flexible. And in my career, I have experienced a number of inventors who have not been flexible. And none of those people that I know have gone anywhere. They've not gone anywhere. So it's really important to be flexible, open, and that the idea is just the first step. And to be successful, so many things have to come together. Engineering so important, the research is so important, intellectual property is so important, the marketing is all important. And it's not just one of these things. Being successful all of these things have to be successful.

Right.

And so if you can go into this with an open mind and an open heart and look and be open to modifying this idea because every time you are open, you're going to get one step better. Absolutely. I think that's the important thing.

Absolutely appreciate that share. In fact, when you take that prototype so you just get to the prototype stage, I think up until that stage you're all about just knowing what you think the needs are based on your research. If you've not went out to your target market, then you'll convert what you think are their needs. Then you take the prototype out there to your target market and you actually find out what they want because you're going to show that prototype to them and they're going to be so excited about it. Wow, this is a fantastic idea, Dennis. But may I offer a couple suggestions? And of course you would definitely say yes. What can I do to help you with this? Well, there's where you get the buy in with it with potential customer. They suggest some changes and you listen because those are then you're converting needs what you think they need to what they actually want. And then you take those changes, come back to an engineer like David and say, David, this is what the potential client said is they also want to have some blah, blah, blah type of things features on this and can you make changes to the design so that I can then go and make a reiteration a new prototype and take it back out to them and that's how you get buy in. It's the power of the prototype. It's amazing.

Power of the prototype and prototype often.

Yes, yes, keep prototyping for sure. So David, I understand you have a gift for our listeners today. Can you elaborate more on that please? Yes.

What I'd like to offer is a PDF file that lists important questions that you want to ask your engineering resource. So I think this would be a really good guide to help you interview and select somebody to help you out.

Wow, that's fantastic. In fact, I know it's going to be very beneficial because I've heard Dave's questions before of aspiring inventors about where they want to go with their ideas. So to be able to have something on paper that you can look at first and then get acquainted with that so you can be more prepared to ask the most effective questions of a time engineer, the more effective your journey will be in getting your idea from mind to market. So thank you very much and we'll actually have that on a link at the end of this video as well so you can access to that as well. So to all your listeners, thank you so much for attending and I appreciate you reaching out with your questions. There's so many questions that people are asking because they want to be able to get their idea most cost effectively from mine to market. So again, watch your inbox for the next interview and thank you again for this time and have yourself a fantastic day and we'll talk soon.

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