Design Services
When addressed with a customer’s project, Prabhat will analyze the design requirements and begin the development process. This design services stage involves:
- Benchmarking of similar products and solutions.
- Application of the latest industry standards to each project.
- Conceptualizing a variety of possible solutions.
- Initiate the integration of our elastomer expertise.
This stage can be applied to creating new edge technologies or improving existing ones.
Once the overall guidelines for the project have been set and the concepts generated, design of the possible products will begin. Through our CAD programs, preliminary models will be created for proof of concept. These will be evaluated by the customer, Prabhat, or any other involved party to select the most viable options.
The selected concept(s) will be further developed according to strict design requirements. Focus will be on making the most efficient design for the specific application. These designs will then be prepared for rapid prototyping (3D printing) and/or for functional prototypes on our in-house CNC machine. CAD drawings and renderings will be provided at each step to the customer and prototyping machinists to ensure uniformity and correct product design. These prototypes are a significant part of the process ensuring that the product is to the customer’s satisfaction and provides our engineers with physical product to inspect design integrity.
Material selections and final design requirements are deliberated at the end of this process. Elastomer compounds can be formulated for custom application or selected from our existing proprietary compounds. Dimensional data and tolerances are evaluated and documented for each product. Other materials involved in the design will be selected and evaluated for performance and cost.
Each complete design or necessary aspect of the design can be provided to third party testing organizations or submitted to relevant parties for approval. Rubber compounds that are newly developed can be submitted to the appropriate standard organization. Many of our rubber compounds are already approved by these organizations and can be used for the relevant application.
Samples for testing will be created and provided to the customer for product evaluation and real life product application. This ensures that before product manufacturing begins, each aspect of the design has been observed so that product issues do not arise in the future. ‘De-Bugging’ of the design at this point safeguards the efficiency of each product.
New product designs, prototypes, and samples go to our production team for implementation. Here the necessary tools, molds, materials, and other instruments are created and gathered. This process focuses on maximum efficiency to minimize cost and production time. For more information on our production process please see our Production Process page.
Detailed documentation of the entire process is kept diligently by each member of the Prabhat team involved. Customer satisfaction and quality control are our highest concerns. Each decision made by Prabhat can be evaluated by the customer to ensure that the product they receive is exactly what they requested.
Prabhat will maintain lifelong support of the product to ease any concerns by the customer in the future. This may be anything from new improvements to the design or addressing any concerns from the customer’s end. Prabhat will evaluate the product periodically to ensure the most recent standards are incorporated and the design is matching the technological trends.