17 HardTech Terms You Need to Know for Product Development
Authors: Bill Fienup, mHUB Co-founder and VP of Innovation Services; Jose Cardona, Founder and Principal Engineer at Mechanical Design Labs, Inc.; Jim Shaw, Managing Director, Fastway Engineering; and Matt Mroczek, Chief Strategy Officer, Steel Croissant There are so many acronyms in the world of engineering, manufacturing, and product development, that the team at mHUB Hardtech…
Rapid Prototyping: 3 Product Developers talk Hardtech Innovation
Entrepreneurs and startups leverage their limitations with time and money to get creative in the rapid prototyping process. mHUB tapped three physical product developers within the mHUB Hardtech Development ecosystem to share their experiences with and insights for rapid prototyping. What is rapid prototyping? Rapid prototyping is the fabrication of a physical, tangible component or…
Design Thinking to Support Manufacturing Innovation
What is design thinking? Some say design thinking is an approach to problem-solving. Some say it is an iterative creative process. According to a 2015 report by the Design Management Institute, “design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 211%”1. The most important concept within design thinking is that it is focused on the end user…
Convening Small- to Medium-Sized Manufacturers within the mHUB Ecosystem
Small- to medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) are focused on their core business and taking care of their customers while they navigate global disruption. It’s easy to understand why SMMs need support for product innovation and manufacturing process improvements during this time when manufacturers are being asked to produce more with less. “SMMs typically need industrial designers, fabrication specialists, metallurgists, and experts in finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics…
UX Design for Physical Products: 3 Considerations during Product Development
For anyone developing physical products, UX design is a critical part of the hardtech development process. Thoroughly understanding the user experience is key to designing a product that solves a particular problem and focuses on ease of use for quick adoption within a target market. mHUB, a leading independent hardtech and manufacturing innovation center, asked…
Discover what an mHUB Hardtech Development team looks like
The mHUB innovation community consists of a network of over 500 engineers, product designers, and entrepreneurs. The diversity of skill and knowledge make a Hardtech Development team the most qualified you can find for research and development projects. These innovators work together, physically, to solve problems in an agile manner while engaging a client’s own…
CFD and FEA: The Role Simulations play in HardTech Product Development
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) are two types of computer-based simulation tools that can support hardtech entrepreneurs as they work through the iterative product development process. Using CFD and FEA can help product designers evaluate initial product performance, identify potential failure points, and discover elements of the product design that could…
How to Make Process Improvements to Your Manufacturing Production Lines
Process improvements in manufacturing can mean different things to different people. When some people think of process improvements, they may remember their experience going through the Six Sigma or Kaizen approach to implementing lean manufacturing principles into their production floor. For the team at mHUB Hardtech Development services, process improvement means finding opportunities to innovate…
Five Important Manufacturing Trends In 2021
In 2020, 60% of US manufacturers experienced disruptions to their operations. The pandemic shed some light, and intensely, on the shaky foundation of the global supply chain and opportunities for the US to take back certain segments of manufacturing. While painful, these disruptions encouraged the industry to move faster, innovate harder, and show resilience in brand…
The Innovation Spectrum: 3 Approaches to Innovation and Product Development
Innovation can look very different company to company, but there are thematic methods that an entity chooses to follow, largely dependent on their risk tolerance and available resources. When it comes to product development, supplier innovation follows the particular demands of the markets being served; where the macro-trends and specific customer needs determine which approach…