What Are The Key Characteristics of Requirements Based Electronic Product Development Can you imagine how many electronic products are developed every year? Behind every successful electronic design there are just as many, possibly even life-changing, innovations that don’t ever go far. The father of the electric light bulb, Thomas Edison, had more than 1,000 patented inventions that didn’t make it to fruition as a useful device. Granted, just because something is a unique idea, doesn’t mean its destiny is development, but the there is a secret regarding the success of those ideas that do become successful. The causes for both the nonstarters and the succeeders are wide-ranging but can often be traced to whether or not the original requirements were effectively defined. The originator may have a pretty good concept of what that electronic, supersonic, space-age; whatsamagigit is supposed to do, but the hows and heretofores of what needs to happen in order to make it do that is entirely dependant upon proper development of the requirements. Examining every aspect of the electronic product and developing structured definition is important to be done even before a plan for development is formulated. The requirements stage is absolutely crucial to product success.
Focusing on requirements at the front end of the electronic product development process provides a foundation and winnows out potential flaws. By improving the likelihood of success the cost of an electronic product development is ultimately kept lower and it can be completed sooner. The requirements level of electronic product development has categorically been shown to cause the biggest cause of design defects. This stage relates the customer’s product vision to the technology being applied by the engineering firm, and ensures that an appropriate development plan is carried out. Requirement inadequacies will be detected later into the project and result in delays and do-overs, so they become more and more expensive as the product development process advances. As the Changes to requirements of the expected product performance, interfaces and agency testing (UL, CE, FCC, CSA etc.) become exponentially, increasingly complex and expensive. The costs rise quickly.
Many of our clients come from engineering and have no trouble understanding engineer-speak but others must have requirements broken down into Basic English. In order to develop products according to what the customer tells us they want, we have to be able to translate and help define the information correlating it to specifications relating to the standards for the product’s industry. Below are some of the questions we begin with to define significant facets for development of the specifications necessary for well planned requirements-driven electronic products:
Whether it’s a “green”, low-cost, low-power product, faster or larger instruments, medical, aerospace (ground or flight) or a high-speed, complex embedded processor systems Advantage adopts an experienced methodical, top down approach to the development of electronic products, relying on the core belief that formal and complete identification of what is required is the most crucial factor of electronic product development.
