Your home for manufacturing-ready design
Product Design and Supply Chain Services
Our design experience.
Together a successful product launch.
WHAT WE DO
Full-Service Product Design & Supply Chain Solutions
Get your product out of the lab and into stable, volume manufacturing. We are uniquely structured integrating design teams with supply chain managers to ensure products are high-quality and can be manufactured. We help you navigate the complex trade-offs beyond just price and delivery. With a team averaging 20+ years of experience, we combine new technologies with proven methods to ensure every design is optimized for production.
Design & Test
Integrated teams for efiicient design focused on manufacturing readiness and proactive testing to ensure your product meets the requirements.
Supply Chain
Connecting you with manufacturers optimized for your product's requirements and your business needs.
Operations Consulting
We manage the transition into stable and scalable manufacturing until your team takes over.
Customers
Development Projects
New Products
Our Services
Take Your Product to the Next Level
Whether you need to go from 1 to 100, or from 1000 to 100,000, we design your products to grow with your business.
Product Design & Development
Partner with an experienced development team who will anticipate challenges and avoid common pitfalls while designing a product that is ready for production. This ensures your product is professionally developed, efficiently transitioned into stable manufacturing, and ready for the market.
Supply Chain
Outsource managing the complexities of your supply chain with confidence. Our vast experience in managing all the details of initial set-up to identifying opportunities for cost reduction allow you to focus on growing your business while your operations run smoothly.
Test Services
Ship products with confidence because they are engineered for reliability and tested before they leave the manufacturing floor. Our design teams rigorously test products throughout the development process and create custom production stations to ensure long-term factory quality.
Operations Consulting
Benefit from a fresh, data-driven perspective and gain the expertise of a high-level executive without the overhead. Our fractional executives will cut through your organization’s internal bias to give you balanced advice to make confident, objective decisions for your company’s future.
Going to the Next Level
FAQ
What does a hardware product development company do?
A hardware product development company takes a physical product from an idea or concept through to a tangible physical project. Ideally, the final result is manufacturable and scalable. Design companies can specialize in eletrical or mechanical designs and offer prototyping and testing services to support the transition into production.
Zebulon Solutions offers full end-to-end services combining product design and test with supply chain management. This unique combination delivers a product that is not only manufacturable, but transitions into manufacturing with suppliers that can scale to support increasing sales of the product.
How do I take a hardware idea from concept to production?
The typical path begins with a physical concept that evolves into a functional prototype to gather market insight and attract investor interest in an MVP (minimum viable product). Once the requirements are finalized, the design is optimized for manufacturability, durability, and reliability, then validated through testing. As the design matures, production tooling and long-lead components are ordered while additional prototypes are built for regulatory testing. Initial production occurs with a pilot build and finally full-scale production.
A visual representation of this process can be found with our Hardware Marathon Series.
Commonly hardware products stall before reaching volume production because of delaying the manufacturability and supply chain planning until late in the process.
How much does it cost to develop a hardware product?
Cost is heavily dependent upon on product complexity, how much design work already exists, and regulatory requirements.
How is Zebulon Solutions compensated?[
We primarily work on a time and materials basis. We do not receive any commissions or payments from our suppliers or companies that we recommend.
How long does it take to bring a hardware product to market?
Timelines vary by product complexity and how ready the design is for manufacturing. They typically span several months or even a few years through multiple design stages (concept, alpha, beta, production) plus manufacturing ramp-up.
What should I look for in a product development partner?
Look for a team with experience developing products with similar requirements and are aligned with your goals. Whether you need an MVP, protot ype, regulatory support, or a path to stable, volume manufacturing your development partner should be able support this.
If your need regulatory support, working with a development partner that has experience with your industry may be able to provide design guidance and assist with regulatory testing.
If you need to connect with manufacturers, ensure your design partner has direct experience working with manufacturing partners and can make introduction and recommendations. It is important, however, to evaluate the manufacturer to ensure they can support the technical and business requirements of your product. The development partner should also have extensive experience taking products through DFM and into stable volume manufacturing.
Do I need a company that does both design and supply chain, or can I use separate vendors?
It is important to understand the goal of each supplier. Design teams are focused on design but may not have experience with manufacturing. They may have a limited number of supplier contacts that they apply to every project, which may not be the best fit for the product. It is also common for a design partner to complete the design and hands you off to figure out manufacturing alone; this leaves a significant part of the process for you to sort out on your own. A design can look great on paper but run into problems when introduced to production.
If you engage with a supply chain firm separately, it is important to understand how they are compensated. It can either introduce additional, and potentially hidden, costs into your product or you may only have access to suppliers that they receive sales commissions. If you want a custom supply chain with minimal hidden costs, you need to understand how everyone involved is compensated.
If manufacturing is the goal, then engaging with a design firm that also offers supply chain services will help you bridge the gap between design and production. Zebulon Solutions combines design-for-manufacturing expertise with supply chain integration, ensuring manufacturability, sourcing, and engineering are evaluated together throughout the project.
Does Zebulon Solutions have prototyping or manufacturing capability?
Zebulon Solutions is a design and supply chain services company. While we can print 3D plastic parts in-house, all other prototyping is handled through your or our trusted prototyping suppliers. We help clients identify and engage manufacturers best suited to their product and business needs. We then manage the transition from design to production to ensure manufacturability requirements are maintained through the process.