New Product Requirements & Risk Assessments

Before spending a lot of money developing, analyzing and testing your new product, it is critical that sound business case is made for the product and that the stakeholders are well informed of the potential risks. Matrix Engineering Consultants has the expertise and experience to guide you through this often overlooked, but essential phase of the product development process.

Product and Technical Requirements

One of key elements needed to create the sound business case for your product is a detailed list of the product and technical requirements. These requirements are based on the voice of your customer (VOC), voice of your business (VOB) and potentially, the voice of regulation (VOR) and are aligned with your customers needs.

Matrix Engineering Consultants are very experienced in eliciting the requirements and documenting this requirements. In short, this work starts by answering these basic questions;

  • What is the product and what does it do?
  • Who is the product for?
  • Why will your customer use the product and why are you developing it?
  • What do you need to learn?

After these questions are answered, we can proceed to complete a detailed technical assessment which will help guide the development of the product.

Industry Standards Research

An aspect of new product development often overlooked is compliance with voluntary industry standards. Although generally not required, compliance with industry standards is often an important element in the product risk management plan and in some cases, mandatory before you can sell your product.

Matrix Engineering Consultants has the breadth and depth of experience in new product development to complete detailed standards research. We have lots of experience with industry standards such as:

  • ANSI
  • ASME
  • BS-EN
  • EN
  • IEC
  • IEEE
  • ISO
  • MSHA
  • NFPA
  • SAE

Facilitation of Product Risk Assessments

Matrix Engineering Consultants is experienced in assisting its clients understand the potential risks associated with their new product. We generally do this by facilitating new product risk assessments using industry recognized processes such as ISO 31000. Although there are many different approaches to the risk assessment certain steps are common.

  • What can happen and why?
  • What are the consequences?
  • What is the probability of their future occurrence?
  • Are there any factors that mitigate the consequences of the risk or that reduce the probability of the risk?

Regardless of the process or technique used in the assessment, the goal is to identify possible hazards associated with the product and to provide a basis for considering alternative designs to mitigate or control those risks.