Research and Development
- SMA/Shuimin Associate Group (AG) has a great deal of experience working under a variety of quality systems and situations and can adapt quickly to work with your current staff or partners. SMA and its associates have extensive research and development experience and capabilities, which make us not only capable of producing high quality products at a low cost, but also capable of making your new ideas and inventions into a successful product in today’s very competitive market.
- Thousands of SMA/Shuimin AG senior engineers, specialists and researchers are always ready to help you transform your wildest ambitions and imaginations into reality. We are here to face your manufacturing challenges with the very best expertise, the fastest possible turnaround time, and the highest quality customer service and support. You can rely on us for expert advice on DFM (Design For Manufacturability) principles and processes. You can count on us to open up a hidden market with the lowest possible initial investment and you can always depend on us to harvest the profits from your most innovative concepts in the least possible amount of time. We appreciate every business opportunity from all our customers, and we expect to grow together with you through our mutual benefits.
- Industrial Design and Engineering: Technology by itself is of little use if not directed toward a specific goal. The designers, engineers, and product development experts at SMA/SHUIMIN AG focus the development process on specific business objectives and user expectations. Our process results in a product that visually communicates to the user its purpose, price, and performance level. The “look” such as outlining, of your product is pivotal for its success. Anticipating psychological, physiological, and sociological factors that influence and are perceived by the user is essential to successful product development. SMA/SHUIMIN AG’s engineers and designers can help guarantee this success through:
- Focus groups and human factors analysis
- Usability studies
- Style and color trend analysis
- Form studies
- Product family configuration development
- Design for manufacturing and assembly
- Developmental mock-ups and visual models
- Photo-realistic renderings and virtual prototypes
- This allows us to:
- Give visual substance to technical ideas through rapid visualization techniques and skills which helps us move more quickly into advanced development stages
- Maintain consistent visual identity with other products of the same brand
- Establish or update new brand appearance
- Ensure product appearance is appropriate for its intended application. Additionally, SMA/SHUIMIN AG’s experts can develop prototypes to help you perform market research, field tests, and all other relevant data gathering—whether you are inventing a new product, diversifying a current one, entering new markets, improving product quality, or changing product strategy.
- Design validation: SMA/SHUIMIN AG R&D can provide you with expert design validation. It is a valuable and effective way to receive objective feedback on product design in a timely manner, closing the gap between what your customers want and what you want to manufacture. Design validation provides instant online research capabilities to complement your existing research methods, while increasing the value of product design activities with quantitative and qualitative research. In our design validation services, SMA/SHUIMIN AG’s expert validates product designs and concepts by querying statistically significant numbers of potential and existing customers using photo-realistic product representations. The “virtual products” are viewed on interactive web sites. In simple terms, products are submitted to viewers for evaluation prior to making manufacturing decisions. Viewer’s responses provide meaningful data and insight into the likelihood of product acceptance and purchase intent. Queried participants are selected from large email or other databases sorted by specific demographic criteria.
- Human factor studies: Many techniques, tools, and methodologies have been developed to help designers create safer and more usable devices, including human factor studies. Human factor studies, also called user studies, human engineering, usability engineering, and ergonomics, include user involvement in every phase of product development. When performing human factor studies, methods that generate objective, auditable data are preferred. However, both objective and subjective data are important in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a design’s successful features. Regardless of the methods, the results are credible only when research participants accurately represent the actual people who will perform the task(s) that are under evaluation. All SMA employees know that your customers deserve the same quality in their manuals, help files, labeling, and support documentation as they get with your products. SMA/SHUIMIN AG injects innovation into all project features in your dream design.
- Successful cases: SMA AG’s R&D has been the cornerstone of its manufacturing and technology to service its customer’s growing demand. With over 500 best and brightest engineers, researchers, as well as designers spreading out at 35 multi-disciplinary manufacturing facilities in China, SMA has accomplished the nine (9) different wire formed spring parts for Boeing 787 within very limited time period. SMA’s Stereo Lithographic division provided the 3D prototype, containing over 90 channels zigzagging in X, Y, and Z direction within a space of 2”x4”x20” , in a week for a sophisticated air pressure instrument of a robot.
- SMA R&D has been delivering the innovations and breakthroughs that are driving growth for both SMA’s and its customer’s business. Examples such as the builder Dave’s multiple stackable oil container; SMA’s revolutionizing Skid shoe for snow plow; SMA’s Edge-cutting lock handle for the dilemma of easily dismounting and tightly mounting are just a few of the innovations we are proud to be a part of.
Your imagination; SMA will make happen.