-: So my name's Daniel Lentz,
I am a product development specialist
in the abrasives systems division of 3M company.
So that's anything from sort of course abrasives
like fiber disks that are going to knock down a weld seam
between two metal plates on an airplane or a car
or a battle ship or what ever have you,
all the way down to sandpaper that we're familiar with using
that you buy at Home Depot or any other store,
and even down into micro-finishings,
so polishes, things where you're getting an aesthetic finish
on a product to make it look smooth and shiny
or whatever your goal is.
Product development then is more sitting at the interface
of not only those technologies, but also the customer,
the business and the marketing
and really synthesizing all of those pieces,
you know, what does the customer need?
How can the business make money?
How can we define the value proposition
so that the customer wants to buy it
and then what technologies do we have at our disposal
to make that product that meets all of those other needs?
Like most companies, 3M uses a phased gate process
for both their new technologies and for their new products
and so you always follow that staged gate process
where each state has certain deliverables,
you know the first few phases being more,
you hear the phrase, the fuzzy front end, right?
And so that's where you're determining do we have a concept?
You know, we think we have this nebulous problem
and we have some technologies,
can we make a prototype that works?
And so you kind of figure that out
and then you move to the next stage which is more,
well, can we actually make this thing
and sell it to the customers?
Can we manufacture it
and do some early manufacturing testing to show
that it is feasible to manufacture it
at an appropriate cost?
Then you move into the more defined phases of that
which are doing qualification runs to ensure
that you have adequate yields for the process,
we can make this thing repeatably
and it will meet our customer's specifications.
And then finally moving into the scale-up where now you are,
all the pieces are together
and it's more about just stocking that inventory
so that when you're ready to launch the product, you have,
you're able to meet the demand of the customer.