In today’s fast-paced marketplace, launching a silicone product line is not only about a good idea. Whatever kind of product you are selling, whether a baby product, travel bottles, pet toys, or anything, you need to maintain a well-managed product life cycle to ensure consistent quality. Sounds complex? No worries! Today, we’ll be discussing custom silicone product life cycle management - from launch to discontinuation. As a manufacturer, KEAN is here to enable brands and business owners to confidently manage their silicone products for cost efficiency, customer satisfaction, and responsiveness to new trends or changes.
What is Product Life Cycle Management?
Product lifecycle management, commonly known as PLM in the business landscape, is the end-to-end process that governs a product in a business. This includes every task of every stage from ideation to discontinuation.
Simply, PLM is the product roadmap from how a design will come to life as a product till it’s discontinued for declining market demand or upgrades. The exact number of stages in product lifecycle management is something to debate about. But all the essential tasks for a structured PLM in a successful business can be covered in six stages.
The stages are market research, conceptualization and product design, product development, product launch, growth, iteration and scaling, and end of life. We have discussed below the core tasks of each stage and how KEAN can help with those.
Life-cycle Stages, Core Business Tasks, and How KEAN Supports Them:
Stage 1 - Market Research
Core Tasks:
· Understanding market insight, what customers need, and the total competitive scenario.
· Define features, price range, how much volume it requires, and all the functions of the product.
· Evaluate how feasible the product is when it comes to production cost, manufacturing complexity, raw material cost, and lead time.
KEAN Services:
· KEAN researches for customer inspiration and does feasibility analysis to help its customers look for products that have a high probability of success. They not only consider the market demand, but also the manufacturability.
· They do a complete production process evaluation from the early stage. This helps businesses and brands to map all the possible difficulties they can face, the estimated cost and time needed from market research to getting the products in their hands after shipping. This will help them to plan their business accordingly.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
Silicone usage is getting more and more popular in various products for its sustainability and sleek factor. Whether baby products, food storage items, travel accessories, pet toys, silicone as a material is taking over the world. KEAN’s product page reflects a lot of that.
You can manufacture different kinds of products with silicone, but not every product is feasible for production, can follow regulatory requirements, has enough functionality, good market demand.
So, if you manufacture whatever product comes to your brain without any expert research, your business can go down the drain. To mitigate high inventory risk and tooling wastage, a brand must partner with a manufacturer that helps to determine which product will be profitable.
Stage 2: Conceptualization & Product Design
Core Tasks:
· Designing the product, which includes its size, shape, according to a better user experience and functionality.
· Production of small amounts of trial pieces or mock-up versions.
· Verify the overall quality of those trial pieces and fix any errors in the design if necessary before proceeding with the large-scale production. Besides, verify the regulatory compliance of the trial pieces.
KEAN Services:
· KEAN offers a joint R&D team to the customers to collaborate with them on research and development.
· They provide design team support to transform the product ideas into 3D designs that are feasible for the silicone industry.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
Silicone product design is not only about the shape and size. It comes with a lot of factors like wall thickness, parting lines, draft angles, material properties, etc, to a high level of precision.
This is essential for a long-lasting high high-quality product. So, partnering with a manufacturer that has a professional design team specialized in silicone products comes with a lot of benefits.
Stage 3: Product Development
Core Tasks:
· Building a detailed product vision and & development plan.
· Developing prototypes.
· Testing the quality and performance of the products.
KEAN Services:
· KEAN manufactures 3D Prototypes for real-world tests to check proper functionality, form, and quality. Clients can receive fully functional prototypes to check user experience.
· They are equipped with everything related to mold making, including a dedicated mold room. KEAN will do the mold production according to the custom product design.
· The last task of this stage will be trial production & testing. This ensures the produced molds are capable of shaping the products with consistent texture, shape, and consistency.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
Silicone products mold production requires high-precision silicone injection and high-volume application. Besides, if you are looking to test small batches for production validation, traditional metal molds are not cost-efficient.
Going with a soft mold or 3D printed molds drastically reduces cost and time. So partnering with a manufacturer like KEAN that is equipped with rapid prototyping technologies will give you an upper hand in this stage than other businesses.
Stage 4: Product Launch
Core Tasks:
· Mass production of the silicone products.
· Release the products in the market.
· Manage the logistics, supply chain management, distribution, etc
· Control the production cost to maintain the product's intended price.
KEAN Services:
· KEAN offers flexible production capacity. This helps the clients to easily scale the production up or down depending on the market demand.
· They have a resilient supply chain ensuring a stable raw material supply for consistent production flow. KEAN reduces the risks related to volatile silicone raw materials.
· They support clients with production cost optimization. With an efficient process, maximise raw material usage with minimum scrap and optimized production flow, KEAN gives you the best quality deal at a reasonable price.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
If you want to have a smooth workflow in your silicone product business, supply chain resilience is a must. High-quality raw material sourcing, regulatory compliance, production, demolding, lead time, logistics – sounds like a lot to handle.
You should trust only a manufacturer with years of experience and expert manpower to produce great quality silicone products that reflect your brand identity.
Stage 5: Growth, Iteration & Scaling
Core Tasks:
· Maintaining market share with ongoing and consistent production and distribution.
· Expand product line with more variation of the silicone products, like complementary items, new generational products, etc.
· Collect market feedback and analyze product reviews.
· Plan and execute product iterations like necessary improvements, upgrades, etc.
KEAN Services
· KEAN offers product iteration support in case any kind of modification, like color change, function modification, material swap, etc, is needed. You, as a client, can upgrade your existing products without wasting them or starting from the beginning.
· They offer derivative product development for clients to help them in developing serialized or complementary products, extending the product line life cycle.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
The silicone products market is evolving rapidly due to changing market trends, new generations, and changing demands. New businesses with trendy products can easily steal market share.
So, it becomes essential to improve features, frequent updates, launch new colors, etc, to satisfy customers' changing purchase habits. You should always look for product iteration support from a manufacturer to maintain the market share without letting any other business replace you.
Stage 6: End of Life
Core Tasks:
· Planning production cessation depending on the market demand. Deciding when to discontinue a product for a better upgraded version, declining demand, or regulatory compliance.
· Clearing all the existing products in the inventory before pausing their sale.
· Providing after-sales service like warranty, spare parts, and support.
KEAN Services:
· KEAN offers the planned discontinuation of a product after your advanced communication regarding the cessation of a product in a controlled way. This enables clients to manage inventory and supply commitments.
· They have a strong after-sales service, which also includes spare parts commitment, besides warranty and other support. So even if a product is being discontinued, brands can maintain their reputation with inactive products.
· KEAN highly protects its clients’ intellectual property from leakage. So they offer mold storage or services to help clients with the disposal of the molds to protect the brand’s customized product design from being replicated.
Why This Matters for Your Business:
In case of low market demand, you may need to discontinue a product. In that case, the molds need proper handling in case of storage or disposal. There are confidentiality implications in the case of storage and disposal. Also, there are some regulatory requirements for maintaining environmental sustainability.
All these take time, cost, and confidentiality. Besides, even for a discontinued product, the after-sales support has to have spare parts and a warranty to maintain brand reputation. So, choosing a manufacturer like KEAN can help you even when you need to pause a product or need spare parts for a discontinued item.