New Product Development

It’s no surprise that developing new products is vital to the livelihood of business growth and profitability. We understand the time commitment and resources required to be successful. But what you may not know when developing new products, is that involving Alexandria Industries early in the process, can be the difference between simply staying in business and staying ahead of the competition.

Alexandria Industries’ involvement early in new product development processes brings many unexpected benefits. Our engineers, estimators and customer service reps provide real-time assistance in helping you think through your overall concept, and suggest design changes that can help reduce start-up costs and get product to market faster.

We work to understand design intent, as well as determine critical-to-function areas and critical/non-critical tolerances for the product application. We want to understand the part features for mating components and ease of final assembly, while helping to design parts for manufacturability. Becoming involved early also helps us look for opportunities to reduce material weight while ensuring overall strength. It allows us to add features that reduce surface flaws and transition areas, and incorporate cosmetic finishes to help meet the goals of the new product’s form, fit and function.

By knowing your needs, Alexandria Industries helps to reduce start-up costs, lead times and unexpected surprises, so you can develop optimal designs as early in the process as possible. But how early is early enough? The design development stage is ideal. Use the following checklist to help ensure that we understand the goals, so we can quickly meet them.

• Design intent
• Critical-to-function areas
• Mating components
• Estimated annual usage and production ramp-up
• Target costs
• Time constraints
• Initial tolerances
• Cosmetic requirements
• Chemical finishing requirements
• CAD files (saves redraw time and mistakes and also assembly files that will provide visuals of mating components)

Involving Alexandria Industries earlier in the product development process will enable you to use your time and resources wisely, create new product solutions with fewer problems and get them to market faster—giving you a competitive advantage. Our team of experts will help make sure your new products function as designed, you gain valuable insights for the next new product development process, and you understand the cost drivers up front—to illustrate the benefits of a valuable supplier-manufacturer partnership.