How Superior Sales Samples Unlock Supply Chain Gains

Editor’s Note: Every year, 40 or so students in the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics’ (MIT CTL) Master of Supply Chain Management (SCM) program complete one-year thesis research projects. The students are early-career business professionals from multiple countries with 2 to 10 years of experience in the industry. The research projects are sponsored by and carried out in collaboration with multinational corporations. Joint teams of company people, MIT SCM students, and MIT CTL faculty work on real-world problems chosen by the sponsoring companies. In this monthly, series we summarize a selection of the latest SCM research. The researchers for the project described below, Hala Jalwan and Greg Israel, devised a new process for creating product samples for their MIT Supply Chain Management Program master’s thesis 3D Printing Your Supply Chain. The project was supervised by MIT CTL Research Associate Alexis Hickman Bateman. For more information on the program, visit http://scm.mit.edu/program.

The process for creating product sales samples can be something of an afterthought in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. Yet improving this specialized supply chain can streamline new product introductions; a significant competitive advantage given the sheer number of product launches in the industry.

The MIT CTL researchers developed a method for using 3D printing technology to produce plastic injection molds quicker and at a lower cost. These molds can then generate a small number (up to 100) of high-quality sales samples much sooner than traditional steel or aluminum molds thus speeding up time to market.

Flawed representation
In response to competitive pressures, a leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturer increased the number of product launches threefold and halved the amount of time taken to get the products to market. A year before each launch, the company would present sales samples (product mock-ups) to their largest retail customers in order to estimate demand and explore the shelf configurations required for the new items.

Capturing more accurate demand data and reducing the time spent in consumer testing represents a huge opportunity for CPG firms. Also, more reliable information on the potential for new products helps to persuade executives to support these projects.

Sales samples are usually made by an injection molding process that has long lead times and high costs, particularly when multiple iterations of the product are needed. Also, the 2D samples produced do not always provide a good representation of the final product.

Much improved model
The researchers devised a “pre-unit tooling process” which is an intermediate phase introduced between the primary package design and initial consumer feedback stages of the production process. Using 3D printing to make the initial molds, the new process supplied 10 to 100 shelf-quality product samples.

These high-quality sales samples lead to more accurate demand predictions, and offer more flexibility by enabling the company to solve design issues earlier in the overall launch process. Some of the test steps can be completed sooner or in parallel with other activities on the critical launch path. The 3D-generated molds can handle injected plastics that are already being used in production, thus qualifying the samples as test subjects. Streamlining the sequence of tasks in this way shaved 14% to 26% off product development timelines. The CPG firm was able to launch a product one full sales season earlier than planned by using samples from 3D-generated molds.

More accurate consumer feedback also reassures executives, and helps companies to avoid costly design freezes caused when senior managers lose faith in a new product and stall its development.
As 3D printing technology advances, the benefits of the new process will increase. For example, future printers will create more durable molds with the capacity to supply thousands of high-quality samples.

For further information on the research contact Dr. Bruce Arntzen, Executive Director, MIT Supply Chain Management Program, at [email protected].

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