Cut NPD cycles by 50%
Teams who use CoLab for NPD: get more stakeholders involved, track critical product feedback in one place and catch more product errors before production. Meaning they take control of their NPD process – launching higher quality products faster.
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How it works
Initiate critical product conversations early and often
Only 20% of engineering teams today get useful feedback from suppliers – and only 6% from customers. And it’s not because these groups don’t have valuable feedback to give.
It’s that it’s too hard to solicit their feedback during the NPD process. So teams just don’t.
Using CoLab, engineering teams bring external collaborators into a secure online portal. Here, suppliers and customers leave design feedback directly on 3D models and participate in product conversations asynchronously.
By gathering critical product feedback before a design gets to prototype, engineering teams reduce NPD timelines – and build better relationships with suppliers and customers.
Get better visibility into where every NPD project stands
It happens. Your team misses an NPD milestone. But when it happens over and over across 20+ NPD projects, there’s an underlying problem.
However, that problem is tough to diagnose because there’s no platform to tell you why your team missed key milestones.
With CoLab, NPD leaders get a bird’s eye view of where every issue stands across every NPD project. With a better view of where review bottlenecks occur, these same leaders remove barriers faster and hit key milestones on time.
Pinpoint product errors before a pilot build
You’re not alone. Nearly every engineering team wants to solve for late stage product errors. And most realize this could be solved by catching errors earlier with higher quality design reviews.
Teams that use CoLab catch more errors during design review and slash rework cycles. Some companies have even eliminated rework cycles altogether (seriously! Ask us about it).
By shifting expensive rework out of testing and into design, where failures are caught before they happen, NPD teams deliver a better quality product faster.
Integrations
You don’t need yet another disconnected software solution. That's why CoLab does two things:
- It integrates with your CAD and PLM software to create a connected tech ecosystem.
- It replaces the 5-10 apps you use to complete a single process workflow with 1-2 apps (CoLab + PLM, for example)
CoLab supports more than 70 file types, including native and neutral CAD and integrates with many PLM/PDM systems.
Aside from engineering system integrations, CoLab also integrates with Jira and supports security protocols, like SSO, user permissions and more.
NPD case studies
Engineering teams use CoLab to complete NPD cycles nearly every day. Here are a few who want to share their experiences with you:
Johnson Controls uses CoLab to create a space for more collaborative interactions to happen across global teams. And as a result, the JCI team has used CoLab to consistently hit their product targets.
Ford Pro uses CoLab to collaborate with customers during the NPD process. Before, Ford Pro manually responded to requests from customers to share CAD files.
“We’d have to do a meeting or screenshots. Take local measurements of anything they are looking for. It can be very difficult to answer questions quickly.” explains Andrew Walden, Senior Project Engineer. Now, they use CoLab to share CAD with their partners on demand.
Mainspring uses CoLab to speed up product development cycles and bring more people into the design review process. “We’re able to get real-time feedback on the design from suppliers,” says Kevin Walters, Senior Director of Hardware Engineering.
It’s getting products to market sooner. That was our initial goal: how do we increase productivity, how do we increase the design review cycle to be able to get the products to the market sooner than what we typically had done before. And we have seen an increase, definitely, using CoLab to get there.” -Brian Stauffer, Global Product Design Manager
FAQs about using CoLab for NPD
How engineering teams use CoLab
Whether you’re discussing a prototype or a production drawing, CoLab makes sure everyone is on the same page. Review designs together, in 3D, and pin feedback directly to a model or drawing.
It shouldn’t be hard to tap into your supplier’s expertise. Whether you need DFM feedback or you’re running a multi-supplier RFQ, CoLab makes it easy to share CAD and drawings, exchange design feedback, and approve revisions.
With CoLab, you can make design expertise your competitive advantage. Run interactive technical evaluations with prospective customers to stand out in RFQs and grow your business.
CoLab helps engineering teams achieve 6, 7, and 8-figure cost reduction targets by giving you a repeatable way to run highly engaging value analysis events with groups of any size.
Better products start with better design conversations.
If you’re ready to see how CoLab can transform the way you work with suppliers, here’s how the process works.
- Every conversation starts with a discovery call. During this call, a technical expert will understand your team’s challenges with design review today
- Then, we’ll tailor a demo to address those challenges. This demo includes you, of course, but also some key members from your team who can speak to your challenges in greater detail and vet CoLab as the solution.
- Finally, we do a workshop with more members of your team. This is the fun part! During this workshop, your team will each have temporary CoLab licenses and participate in a sample design review. You and your team will be guided through key features and use cases right inside the CoLab platform.