Blog Archives

Leardon Solutions San Diego Product Development

May 7 2013 | Cliff | All Posts, Business Tips, Product Development | Comment

San Diego Product Development

At Leardon Solutions, we eat, breath, and sleep product development. It’s something that we’re extremely passionate about. Everyone has an innovator / entrepreneur buried within and the funnest part of our job is helping people bring that innovator / entrepreneur out by creating an environment of collaboration that combines industry experience, creative drive and thought leadership.

Since 2005, we’ve been working with the product development community within San Diego and globally. We have discovered that San Diego product development isn’t only great for innovators and entrepreneurs just starting their journey, but also has the talent to create some truly amazing startup teams especially in the areas of consumer electronics, medical device and diagnostic equipment, health and fitness, and sporting goods.

The large biotech innovators in San Diego create a high quality leadership minded talent pool perfect for the kind of teams looking to develop disruptive technologies and devices within specific niche markets.

If you’re in Southern California and ready to take the leap of faith with your product idea, We suggest that you do your research and pick a team close to home if possible. Working with a local team that you may have face to face meetings with while reviewing physical prototypes can have several advantages such as avoiding communication pitfalls and costly time delays.

Have questions about your product development journey? Contact us today, we may be able to help.

Tagged San Diego

Wasdio – A San Diego Prototyping Success Story

December 6 2012 | Cliff | All Posts, Business Tips, Crowdfunding, News, Product Design, Prototyping, San Diego | Comment

After two years and two different prototypes, San Diego product entrepreneur Cary Evans has now launched his innovative PC controller, The Wasdio on Kickstarter in an effort to raise $175,000 in pledges to help build a production version.

Since Evans is a Leardon client and San Diego resident, we thought we would take a moment and ask him about his product development experience and some best tips for prototyping.

Q: Cary, what gave you the inspiration to build a new PC controller?

Cary: After getting my butt kicked too many times in online games, I realized that I was not a good touch-typer in high stress situations. I knew how I wanted to move, but between the 20+ keys my hand was responsible for, I could not move and switch weapons intuitively. I knew there had to be a better way than the keyboard.

Q: What has been the most challenging part of the journey?

Cary: Just like video games, each stage of the journey gets more challenging than the last. Right now our project is on Kickstarter and it has been difficult to get press to talk about our project and to help bring awareness to our project.

Q: What has been your biggest lesson with product development?

A: Our product fits in your hand and ergonomics is a huge factor. With our first prototype, we did not do any 3D print-outs so we could test proportions, button sizes, and how it feels overall in your hand. That being said, we learned to print everything out prior to flushing out a high-fidelity prototype.

Q: How important is it to find the right team that knows the product development life cycle inside and out?

Cary: Finding the right team that have the skills and personalities that you enjoy working with is always important. Also, working with people that have an understanding of the entire process makes for a better product and easier planning. We have not made it from one end to the other, but so far we have been happy working with an end-to-end provider.

Q: Did you design the prototype to optimize manufacturing efficiency? If so, what were some key areas that needed revising for design for manufacturability?

Cary: Yes, but ask Murray more about this one

( Murray Learmonth is VP of engineering at Leardon Solutions )

Murray: The parts were designed to minimize the tooling complexity and therefore minimize the tooling investment by the client. Wherever possible standard open/closed part design was adhered to and only using sliding cores where essential. This process is called Design for Manufacturing (DFM)

Q: What changes will you make (if any) to the production version?

Cary: The purpose of any prototype is to enable you to test it, find improvements and iterate on it. We have a handful of refinements and tweaks that we’ll make before a production version. As an example, our product is essentially a joystick and right now we are refining the amount of tension or force needed to push the stick. These kind of changes are impossible to make without actually feeling it in your hand.

Q: How important do you feel it is to have a real and working prototype to help raise money especially on sites like Kickstarter?

Cary: I cannot speak to other sites but on Kickstarter, if you have a hardware project, you are required to have a working prototype. You can no longer show just computer renderings.

Everyone has ideas, but there is a huge difference between having an idea and holding one. Holding an idea demonstrates that it can be done, your commitment to the idea, and allows people to see and use if for themselves.

Q: What is the best tip(s) you could give someone thinking about spending the capital required to prototype a product?

Cary: Each stage of the process is about refinement. Before prototyping a product, do a proof of concept of your own. It does not matter how crude it is or what materials are used; paper, cardboard or wood are all a great start. The process of making something with your hands and testing it with friends and family will enable you to refine your idea and put you in a great spot for building a prototype.

If you have questions about your prototyping process – please feel free to Contact Us for more information.

Tagged Consumer Device, Joe Donughe, Prototype, San Diego

SME CONNECT Kick Off!

November 29 2012 | Cliff | All Posts, events, News, San Diego | Comment

Discover SME CONNECT

Leardon is a proud partner of the new SME CONNECT initiative which aims to serve midsize technology innovation companies.

Come attend a the kick off event. The event will be great for small and medium sized businesses looking to network with other like-minded folks.

Joseph Donoghue from Leardon Solutions will be available to answer questions about product development including prototyping and manufacturing.

Come meet the folks making it happen on December 17th from 4:30 – 7:00pm at the Green Flash Brewing Company in San Diego.

Read more about the program and register ( $$ ) by visiting the Connect link here

For more in contact CONNECT at Phone: 858.964.1300

Tagged Events, Joe Donoghue, San Diego, SME CONNECT

The Best Companies For Prototyping

November 13 2012 | Cliff | All Posts, Business Tips, Prototyping, San Diego | Comment

Looking for the best companies for prototyping? Follow these tips.

It doesn’t matter if you are in San Diego, New York, or Texas when it comes to looking for the best companies for prototyping, the search can be an educational and overwhelming experience. We’ve put together a list of tips that you can take into consideration to help find the right company for you.

Though we’re based in San Diego, we work with a lot of entrepreneurs, startups, inventors and businesses all over the world including the UK. Their needs vary but they often have many of the same questions when it comes to prototyping. What we’ve noticed is that there are a handful of tips they they should consider to ensure that they are partnering up with the right service provider to bring their prototype to reality.

#1) The Best Company For Your Prototyping Will Have Strong Core Competencies.

Ask to see their portfolio and nit pick the details. Get the skinny on what they did for those products within their portfolio. Remember, this is an interview for them to get work and you to get a world class prototype.

#2) The Best Company To Prototyping Your Product Will Have Strong Relationships with Suppliers and Manufacturers.

If the company that you choose to build your prototype is not interested in manufacturing your product, be sure that at the very least they understand designing for manufacturability (DFM) because it will be key to your success if you ever intend on taking your prototype into full production. The best company to prototype your product will know the DFM process inside and out and work with manufacturers and suppliers on the daily basis. Their established relationships with their vendors can be leveraged to your benefit.

#3) Geography isn’t important

The best companies understand and work efficiently in the global economy. You shouldn’t have to limit your choices to working with a local company in Austin if a company that is a better fit for you is in San Diego or New York. Skype, Google Docs and other technologies have made real time communications inexpensive and available to just about everyone. The world is in the palm of your hand, take advantage of it and make sure they do to.

#4) The Best Companies For Prototyping Hire The Best People

And you can easily verify their qualifications by using online searches both in Google and sites like LinkedIn. Take note of the people you speak with and do some research. What are their backgrounds? what have they worked on? who do they know? All of these things can add a huge amount of value to the partnership.

#5) The Best Companies For Prototyping Can Add To Your Idea

Some prototyping companies will build exactly what you ask them to. If you are experienced in the process, this can save time and money, if you are not, this can be the kiss of death. A company full of active and creative minds will help identify problems before they’re problems. Ask for their honest input of the product idea during the first few meetings. It’s important that it remains your idea, but you can leverage years of experience from the team around you at the table.

For more information, Please feel free to Contact Us.

A few different types of prototyping include 3D printing, stereo lithography and rapid prototyping.

San Diego , Southern California

Tagged Joe Donoghue, prototyping, San Diego

Product Development and Manufacturing Ten Commandments

September 4 2012 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, Business Tips, Engineering, Manufacturing, Manufacturing Tips, Northern Ireland, Product Development, Prototyping, San Diego | Comment

The Product Development and Manufacturing Ten Commandments

All product development teams that have gone through a full development cycle to design, prototype, and manufacture their product have learned that there are a set of rules that when followed result in a streamlined and successful process. Some SMEs and entrepreneurs learn this the hard way by making mistakes while others hire experts in the field who have the experience to prevent the mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you are a medium sized business in San Diego, Southern California or a entrepreneurial start-up company in Northern Ireland, the rules are the same and must be followed for success. We have taken decades of product development experience from our team and created the Product Development and Manufacturing Ten Commandments to benefit our readers.

1. Avoid feature creep by rigorously defining your product before making or designing any prototypes.

2. Decide if the product features, the project/product cost, or the project schedule is the most important project priority and manage the program appropriately.

3. Make early Proof-of-Concept and Integrated Design Prototypes to validate the product functionality.

4. Work with one service provider to avoid multiple design hand-offs during the development life cycle and increase accountability. This is typically considered an end-to-end solution.

5. Maintain a strong relationship with the chosen manufacturing supplier and understand all cultural differences.

6. Only release the design for production tooling when all prototype qualification is complete and purchase the appropriate tooling based on quantity, expected part prices, and tool life.

7. Before starting production of customer-shippable products, qualify all the production tools, parts, and the final product.

8. Allow enough time to make the initial order of customer products and staff appropriately with design and manufacturing engineers to resolve the inevitable issues encountered.

9. Only make changes to the design or manufacturing processes in production when there are serious issues that result in safety or shipment issues.

10. Manage the stable production and don’t get complacent.

If you have questions about any of these Product Development and Manufacturing Ten Commandments, please feel free to contact us.

Tagged Joe Donoghue, manufacturing tips, Northern Ireland, prototyping, San Diego, Southern California

San Diego Based Aculief Discusses Prototyping

August 7 2012 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, Business Tips, Manufacturing, Prototyping, San Diego | Comment

Leardon Solutions’ customer Jon Duggan, CEO of Aculief of San Diego, California has recently launched a company around their namesake product. The Aculief product is a stylish wearable pain management device for people with active lifestyles. It was designed around the idea of applying pressure to the LI-4 meridian acupressure point located between the thumb and forefinger to provide tension relief. Jon has been working on the Aculief product for a couple of years, tuning the idea so that it not only works well but also has an aesthetic appeal to consumers.

Jon is a perfectionist and hence took the Aculief through many prototype iterations to make it exactly like he wanted. We decided that it would be beneficial to interview Jon about his San Diego prototyping journey and provide this advice for others working on prototypes. Here is the interview between Leardon Solutions and Jon.

Leardon: How did you come up with the idea for the Aculief?

Jon: When I was in college a friend of mine told me about the LI4 Acupressure Point to fix a headache. I took my thumb and used it to apply pressure to the area and it relieved my headache. After graduating college I said “I am going to design a product that you can wear to apply pressure to the LI4″. I talked about it for a number of years and 12 years later I was on a plane reading a Men’s Health Magazine article titled “30 second to cure a headache”. The article described how to apply pressure to the LI4 to cure a headache. I said to myself “I need to do this now”. After finding a local San Diego prototype company Leardon Solutions on the internet, we met and discussed the best way to prototype, design, and manufacture the product cost effectively. Working with a service provider who provided an end-to-end service (idea to manufacture) made the development, prototyping, and collaboration process easy.

Leardon: What was the most important thing you learned about the prototyping and new product development process?

Jon: Be patient and never compromise. Since you know what you want the end result to be, don’t settle for any less. Sometimes all that is required are a few prototype tweaks and it is exactly what you set out to create from the start.

Leardon: How important was prototyping Aculief?

Jon: The Aculief prototypes were critical. If you are creating a product from scratch you need to test it, break it and get feedback from others. Without a prototype this is not possible.

Leardon: How did you prototype the Aculief?

Jon: Leardon’s knowledge of plastics is amazing so we went with their suggestion on the type of plastic. Leardon then created a rough sample to test the plastic and it was what we needed. Next step was finalize the design and then they created a prototype based on the design and it was close. Finally, they tweaked the pressure and made some design changes to make it fit better and we had the final product.

Leardon: What did you learn from prototyping Aculief?

Jon: Feedback from potential consumers and testing of the product allowed us to make changes that will hopefully lead to our success.

Leardon: What prototyping recommendations do you have for others with product ideas?

Jon: Find a great partner and they will make it easy. Have the prototype made and present it to all your friends and family. Once they see it and you get their reactions you will know if you should continue with going into full production. You never know until you try!

Here are some additional resources about the LI-4 acupressure point and using the Aculief.

How to Relieve Pain Using Acupressure Massage at L14 (Hoku Point)

Acupressure Points and Massage Treatment

How to Use the Aculief

If you are interested in learning more about the Aculief, please contact them at info (at) aculief.com.

Need more information on new product development or the manufacturing process? Please contact us with any questions or contact me directly at joseph.donoghue ( at ) leardon.com.

Tagged Prototype, San Diego

Scottish Newspaper Interviews Product Development Expert Murray Learmonth

July 10 2012 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, News, San Diego | Comment

Scotsman Murray Learmonth

It’s not very often that the an engineer who has developed close to a hundred products gets approached by a newspaper for an interview. As a Scottish expatriate, Murray Learmonth was recently contacted by the Scottish Times to talk about his success as Vice President of Engineering at Leardon Solutions, a San Diego based engineering, prototyping, and manufacturing company. Murray co-founded Leardon Solutions with Joe Donoghue in 2005 to help start-ups, entrepreneurs, and small/medium enterprises develop their inventions and products.

Murray grew up in Motherwell, outside of Glasgow, Scotland and completed his engineering education at Glasgow Caledonian University. Throughout his career, Murray has worked at several companies in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. in the aerospace, medical, consumer electronics, and automotive industries. The weather of his current residence in San Diego is a far cry from the weather where he grew up, but Murray continues to travel back to Scotland as the Leardon Solutions business grows in the U.K.

Murray’s passion for product development shines through when he works with all companies. Murray can be directly held responsible for helping dozens companies from San Diego to Scotland become a profitable entity through his advice and work in prototype development, engineering design, and manufacturing. According to Murray, “There is nothing more exciting then seeing a company ship their products to customers and start generating revenue.”

To learn more about Murray, please read the interview with the Scottish Times in the article titled Motherwell to San Diego.

If you wish to contact Murray directly, please contact us with any questions or contact Murray directly at murray.learmonth ( at ) leardon.com

Tagged Murray Learmonth, San Diego, Scotland

5 Reasons Why San Diego Product Development Is Leaping Ahead

October 4 2011 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, News, San Diego | 2 Comments

Since Leardon Solutions is headquartered in San Diego, California, it might be interesting to review what makes San Diego an innovative city. San Diego is the eighth largest city in the United States with 1.3 million people but to the local resident it feels like a vibrant, active, and cohesive small city community. This small-city feel along with other success factors unique to San Diego create a successful and innovative product development and product design culture. Below are five reasons why investors, inventors, startup companies, and entrepreneurs should keep their eye on San Diego product development.

1. Weather
San Diego is well known for its year round mild climate. Charts from weather.com show that the lowest average daily low temperature of 48 degrees Fahrenheit occurs in December while the highest average daily high temperate of 77 degrees Fahrenheit occurs in August. Some critics might think that this weather would deter from creative product design, industrial design, or innovative product development but in fact the opposite occurs. The active outdoor nature of San Diego inhabitants has spawned a large cluster of design companies in the action sports businesses. In fact, the business accelerator San Diego Sports Innovators was formed specifically to address the needs of the sports business community in Southern California.

2. Educated Entrepreneurial Residents
According to the LAEDC Kyser Center for Economic Research 2011 report, 40% of the San Diego’s adult population has a bachelor’s degree or higher. This educated work force makes San Diego a hub of research and innovation in biotechnology, communications, and software development and fosters superb product design and development. Aside from this, San Diego is home to some world renowned universities including the University of California – San Diego, San Diego State University, and the University of San Diego. In fact, the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering is ranked the 14 best graduate engineering school in the United States by the U.S. News & World Report. For those aspiring entrepreneurs, the SDSU Entrepreneurial Management Center which is part of the highly ranked SDSU Entrepreneurship Program provides a link between university curriculum and industry hands-on experience.

3. World-Class Product Design Engineers
San Diego is home to many technology, aerospace, medical device, and life sciences companies that have created a pool of engineers well-trained in diverse markets and technologies. The list of well known companies includes Qualcomm, Broadcom, Hewlett Packard, Illumina, Gen-Probe, Care Fusion, General Atomics, Goodrich Aerostructures, and ViaSat Inc., among others. This large cluster of high technology companies requires local support through nearsourcing to local engineering and manufacturing service companies to help companies execute their product design and development strategies. This tier of service companies exists throughout San Diego County and is crucial for the rapid commercialization of technology. These engineering and manufacturing companies service both large and small customers where companies such as D&K Engineering, Outsource Manufacturing, Pharmatek, and Invetech serve the large customers and Leardon Solutions, PDGOncore, and Novo Engineering tend to serve the smaller customers.

4. Regional Manufacturing Base
There is a myth that manufacturing has left the United States and only exists in lower wage countries. Fortunately, this myth is untrue and San Diego product development, industrial design, and product design companies are in close proximity to one of the largest manufacturing bases in the United States. As written in the report Southern California is the nation’s largest manufacturing economy, if the six counties of Southern California (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Riverside) were a state, they would be considered the third largest manufacturing “state” with 765,000 people employed behind California and Texas.

Not all San Diego product development companies require this highly-skilled U.S. manufacturing labor force. Companies that design and produce products with high labor and assembly content might need access to lower labor wage countries. When low labor wages are needed along with fast manufacturing lead times, lower shipping costs, and low inventories, companies in San Diego have access to the plethora of maquiladoras factories directly over the Mexico border. Companies are also only one day travel time from the enormous manufacturing base located throughout Asia which makes it feasible to utilize strategic outsourcing models that match the product needs with the skills in the region.

5. Startup Support
A local ecosystem of innovative companies developing products can only exist if there is a continuous influx of new companies with groundbreaking new technologies. Without the proper support and assistance base, this ecosystem will not flourish. San Diego is home to CONNECT, one of the world’s best regional programs that connects inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need to commercialize their technology. CONNECT is a non-profit organization that originated in San Diego over 20 years ago and has helped in the creation of over 2,000 companies.

San Diego is also home to many technology incubators. One of the leading incubator programs in the San Diego region is EvoNexus, a technology incubator hosted by the leading non-profit technology trade organization CommNexus.

Finally, this local ecosystem requires professional societies that create a venue for companies to network and discuss best practices as well as helps to accelerate and promote the local companies. The local San Diego chapter of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is very active in the local community and holds many PDMA events that bring the local business and product design community together. Also, the non-profit organization CleanTech San Diego exists to promote San Diego as a world leader is clean technology development and implementation. These incubators, professional, and outreach organizations are instrumental in promoting San Diego as a leader in product development.

The weather, educated residents, world renowned universities, world class product design engineers, regional manufacturing base, and startup support are fundamental to successful and innovative product development in San Diego. Startup companies, inventors, entrepreneurs, and investors should look to San Diego as a hub for their innovative efforts.

Joseph Donoghue – Leardon Solutions

Tagged News, Product Development, San Diego

What is a Production Prototype?

September 27 2011 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, Prototyping | Comment

If you are reading this post, you probably understand the basics of prototyping early in the product development lifecycle. In past posts on prototyping, we have discussed the Proof-of-Concept Prototype and the Design Prototype (also referred to as the Form/Fit/Function Prototype) as the first two phases of prototypes in world-class product development. Let’s define these two prototypes again as a refresher:

Proof-of-Concept Prototype: First phase of a product prototype that bears little resemblance to the final product but is used to validate of the idea and prove feasibility. A Proof-of-Concept Prototype is also used for obtaining intellectual property and to show to investors for raising money.

Design Prototype: Second phase of a product prototype that has the functional and aesthetic properties of the final product and is produced using quick fabrication methods. A design prototype is used to work out the final design and manufacturing details and to receive feedback from distributors, buyers, and retailers.

Note that these first two prototype stages are meant to prepare the product for production but that no production tooling or final products using the final manufacturing processes have been built or qualified. The picture below shows the proof-of-concept (POC) and design prototype for the Emada Cigar Clip, a product that is used by golfers and boat enthusiasts to hold their cigars. The POC prototype was constructed using an off-the-shelf plastic wire clip attached to a flat metal plate and an off-the-shelf magnet. The Design (Form/Fit/Function) Prototype was designed to the specifications required of the Emada and machined out of nylon to meet the functional and aesthetic requirements. These two prototypes were used to prove the concept, qualify the design, and verify it was acceptable for the existing market. This was required to prepare for the next phase of prototyping. The inventing blog Ideas Uploaded provides some other great examples of Proof-of-Concept Prototypes in the post How Inventors make Prototypes.

Emada Cigar Clip Proof of Concept and Design Prototypes

There is a third and final prototype stage that fills the gap between prototyping and full scale manufacturing. This is referred to as the Production Prototype.

Production Prototype: The third phase of prototype that is fabricated using the final production design and manufacturing methods. A Production Prototype is used to qualify manufacturing processes and to receive feedback from distributors, buyers, customers, and retailers.

The Production Prototype for the Emada Cigar Clip in different materials is shown below. Due to the expectations of large production volumes of this product, it was necessary to produce a two-cavity hardened steel tool for plastic injection molding. Once the tool was complete, the engineering team at Leardon Solutions approved the tool by performing first article inspection (FAI) and determining the process capability (Cpk) of the molding process. To determine the proper material to be used in the final product, three materials were molded including nylon, POM (polyoxymethylene), and PP (polypropylene). All three materials were tested but only the nylon was qualified as acceptable for use in the expected environment.

Emada Cigar Clip Production Prototypes

You might be wondering why you must build production prototypes if the production tools and assembly line are functioning. There is sufficient work required to qualify the product functionality and the manufacturing processes to prevent defective products from getting into the hands of customers. Performing the proper verification and validation with production protoypes will result in high quality products.

Tagged Design Prototype, Form Fit Function Prototype, Functional Prototype, Invention, Product Development, Product Development Lifecycle, Production Prototype, Proof-of-concept, Prototype Design, San Diego

Apt Innovations in BBC News Article

September 16 2011 | leardonsolutions | All Posts, Customer Profile | Comment

Leardon Solutions client Apt Innovations from Northern Ireland is portrayed in the BBC News article Cold winter inspires NI man’s pipe business. Leardon Solutions designed, engineered, prototyped, and qualified the Floe winterizing product for Apt Innovations and currently manufactures components for the product.

Tagged Invention, Inventor, Manufacturing, Northern Ireland, Product Development, Proof-of-concept, Prototype Design, Prototype Fabrication, San Diego, Winterizing

Page 1 of 212 »