Woman assembles electronic product during production in overseas factory

5 Factors that Influence Your Production Costs

Cost can be the make or break factor for any product development project, especially once you make it to production. When determining costs, there are two prices to consider. The retail price is the amount that your product will cost for the customer. The material cost of goods (MCOG) is the amount that your product will cost to make. While there are a variety of factors that will determine both costs, we’ll break down five of the most common ones to keep in mind.   Target User – Your retail cost of goods should always be influenced by your target user as

Inventor reaches for bottle secured using Anchor Drink System's Magnetic Coaster

Bringing a Product to Market – Anchor

For our next client spotlight, Pillar Design spoke with Andrew, the inventor of Anchor Drink Systems, about his experience bringing a product to market. Located on Bainbridge Island off of Seattle, Andrew is a dentist by trade who decided to take the plunge into product development. Check out the Anchor website to preorder your magnetic drink system or browse our Anchor blog post to learn more!   Pillar: Tell us a little bit about you and your product. Andrew: I’m a regular guy that had an idea. Pillar helped me design and build a magnetic coaster which can hold a custom koozie or

3Dio Omni Binaural Microphone Product in Use

3Dio – Omni Binaural Microphone

The 3Dio Omni binaural microphone is specifically designed to provide professional binaural audio for Virtual Reality & 360º camera applications. Binaural recording allows audio to be captured in the same way the human ear hears sound. This produces the most natural sounding audio that creates three-dimensional sound, transporting the user to the recording site. Pillar assisted 3Dio through their product development journey, reverse engineering the complex 3D ear models for both the 2 and 4-position binaural microphone systems and developing the housing with methodically laid out user controls and inputs. In response to higher demand, Pillar also helped scale up their

Closeup of MUi Magnetic Leash Product In Use

MUi Leash

The MUi leash is a magnetic dog leash that allows for quick and easy attachment to your dog’s collar. Utilizing a dual-magnet assisted system, the leash perfectly aligns and securely attaches to your furry friends. Pillar is honored to have been a part of this project, starting at the initial design phase and helping take the product all the way to production. Launching in mid-2021, we can’t wait to see this out in our local dog parks soon! Preorder your MUi Leash here: https://muipet.com/

Pillar Design Product Development Meeting in Production Facility

Pillar Travels Overseas

Well, it's that time of year again; time to visit our overseas supply chain. Pillar Product Design has a wide network of prototype and production factories overseas that help fabricate products for our clients. Located in the Shenzen, Dongguan, and Gunagzhou areas, this network has assisted us for many years producing prototype parts and manufacturing successful products for our clients. During our recent trip we worked with our overseas product manager, Karl, to visit our current partners and source new manufacturing facilities with expanded capabilities. Our current network includes metal fabrication, laser cutting, hydroforming, plastic injection molding, CNC cutting of