How we helped our client "defeat" a foreign competitor on his territory

At the beginning the Customer had almost everything, including technical equipment tested on a bench prototype and the understanding of the final users' needs – they are brutal men who work on construction sites all around the country on and under the ground.

Seemingly, it is simple – just go and make the case. But the Customer had no specialists to cope with this task.

The problem is that there already were two long-term European players on the market who suggested good quality products and had loyal clients. It would be hard to make the final customers impulsively change their attitude to the products.

Here they are, "bad guys":

Each product has many properties and the target audience. To make it competitive you should correctly adjust some of its properties, so that it better suits the Customer's (or Customers') needs. This project is a great example.

The final client understands that the price will be high. But he already pays a considerable price and does it for a long time. Consequently, offering a similar product at a lower price is not enough.

Which qualities of the product can also be upgraded? Ergonomics, design, functionality, reliability, delivery conditions, service and purchase details — there are many options, it is hard to take everything into consideration. We should begin with something manageable at the current engineering stage.

Our stakes are on a good design and a considerable price reduction. Our designers suggest several variants:

There are some interesting ideas, but they are based on some traditional patterns — the Customer is not looking for novelty or innovation, and wants a recognizable and traditional design.

Working on detailed sketches of the design:

We selected the design, but hand sketches should be appropriate for the following case production. Now we proceed to the construction and engineering:

Then we prepare design documentation — models and drawings. It is a myth that the time of sketches has passed: they are still a must. The difference is that they are now processed in a digital format:

The digital part of work is over.

We can concentrate on visualizations — the Customer needs a lot of promotion materials, a website etc. for an important upcoming exhibition.

At this stage, you can already understand how the final product will look like (and you can see it below):

Not bad, uh? I also like it. The designers did a great job. By the way, there were only 3 people working on the project, but they are all experts in the field of case design:

Even the projects by most experienced designers originally have imperfections… Any project (100 or even 146%) will have some flaws and drawbacks. It is not the question of poor engineering or outdated design programs. The digital format does not give an opportunity to predict all the possible operating conditions and usages of the device in real life. There are too many factors involved.

But there is no use to start the production when the project is unaccomplished.
Correcting all these minor flaws and problems will be too expensive, about tens of thousands dollars. That is why we make prototypes. Then we test them. Defects are corrected and then again the prototypes are made. And again…

We have no time for a full and proper design cycle. The Customer has to start the production and open the sales. So for prototyping we use technologies that are very close to those used in serial production. This gives us an opportunity to solve the most important problem which was still relevant for the digital format: "Whether the case is well sealed and can be used in real practice on the construction site?"

Do you remember the first picture with an excavator and dust? That is not the worst variant that we considered in the technical assignment! We ordered a prototype in China — milling and molding in silicon forms.

No fashionable 3D-printing, only authentic materials for real tests, only hardcore!

We have no time for a full and proper design cycle. The Customer has to start the production and open the sales. So for prototyping we use technologies that are very close to those used in serial production. This gives us an opportunity to solve the most important problem which was still relevant for the digital format: "Whether the case is well sealed and can be used in real practice on the construction site?"

Do you remember the first picture with an excavator and dust? That is not the worst variant that we considered in the technical assignment! We ordered a prototype in China — milling and molding in silicon forms.

No fashionable 3D-printing, only authentic materials for real tests, only hardcore!

A video of testing a mechanism of the accumulating unit and the first "live" test with electronics:

The board finally went to the construction site of Moscow Metro. Then a pilot batch of several cases was launched into production. The first samples have already found their Customers who in a certain way are a test group — the tests have been going on for several months already. Sorry, we still have no pictures, but there will be — I will add later.

A brief review of what was done.

The Customer presented a device which could easily compete with foreign products on an established market to his Client. A rational and professional approach to the qualities and the development process helped us make the control board competitive not only in terms of price, which is several times lower compared to analogues, but also smart design. The device finally looked rather modern and at the same time met the customers' expectations.

You can and you should compete with superior products! There is no need for huge investment or enormous effort. You need to identify where you can do better and work in this direction!

Now let's think of how we can improve our product to make to more competitive: