Technology for technology’s sake. Or because one customer had requested the change. Only to find out that particular customer’s need was unique, and the new product does not appeal to anyone else.
Rarely does a manufacturer go out in the marketplace and extensively research what the customers--the end user packagers-- really want and need.
Define before you design is easy to say but a challenge to accomplish. That’s why I wrote the book MAP (Market Aimed Products). The book outlines the tools and techniques to improve product development process.
Last year, John Paxton and Jack Aguero of ProMach contacted me. They wanted to take ProMach’s product development to the next level. John had actually taught me some of the MAP techniques and I was more than glad to pay the favor back. I helped teach the ProMach people the methods that use customer input and experience to drive new products.
ProMach’s customers need products that solve their problems. With rationalizing supply chains, competitive pressures, and the economics of a world loosing many of its “country border marketplace barriers” packagers are under tremendous pressure to improve or lose.
ProMach’s product development process is exactly what’s required to help their customers remain competitive. In my experience they are rare in the packaging marketplace—an OEM taking the time to ask the right questions. They have invested a considerable amount of time and money doing the grass roots research to determine what customers need to remain competitive.
It only makes sense that new equipment they are currently developing has a better shot at meeting the marketplace’s needs.
