For start-up companies or businesses running on razor-thin budgets in today’s economy, innovation and new products can provide a huge income boost or streamline a costly process, but often carry a degree of risk that can be too much for a company to wager. In the instance of physical products, this is often due to the cost of creating a prototype, whether it’s the most basic variety to analyze physical possibilities, or an advanced creation for pitches to investors. Ideally, prototypes are one of the initial steps that help companies assess practicality and solidify ideas, but depending on the company and its financial situation, prototyping can be costly and hurt sustainability if it doesn’t come through the way it was planned.
Fortunately, there are choices in prototyping that don’t have to break the bank, particularly in the early stages of product development. For simulating the size or scale of a product or market potential, profile cut foam materials are excellent prototyping mediums because they can minimize development costs while maximizing potential.
Imagine you’re about to present your conceptual idea to an investor or project supervisor. If all you really need to do is convey a visual understanding of physical size and scope and not specific details, using foam materials or foam rubber blocks that have been cut to size can be much more affordable than investing in more expensive materials requiring unnecessary overhead. This is particularly important in early stages of development when a product concept is all that needs to be approved, and details can be added later in the process.
Even if your company is already one that specializes in foam manufacturing, foam prototyping can still generate savings if the right materials are used. A design for a new pillow or comfort cushion can ultimately be intended to be a memory foam product, but if you’re only assessing how an idea on paper translates to the foam medium, more affordable substitutes can be used to make early mock-ups without wasting more expensive materials. A cheaper foam can be used to make the form and test machining capabilities, and only after has it met your satisfaction, do you need to begin recreating the product with memory foam. To get even the smartest ideas off the ground, creativity and planning is required, and using foam prototyping is one way to get to where you need to go.