Developing a new product can be a risky and expensive process. One way to mitigate the risk, is to include a Proof Of Concept (PoC) as part of the development program. A PoC is hardware developed to technically validate an idea or concept. It allows the business to gauge if the product will be technically viable, and hence if it can transition to full production. With minimal outlay, you can demonstrate a functional unit, hence making it much easier to unlock further investment from stakeholders to proceed to the next step. More importantly, it removes some of the technical risks of the final product because it answers the question – “can we do this?”
PoCs will utilise existing hardware components as much as possible to reduce their development time. The PoC may look a bit ugly, be larger than required and certainly not look like the end product.
Alternatively, if it’s a new custom product developed from the ground up – such as a sensor – the first version may be a “quick and dirty” development of the final product, in order to get to the PoC stage. Consequently it will be a closer replica of the final product. After the PoC is complete, a redesign may be attempted to refine it and produce the final product.
If the product to be developed is intended to use “commercial of the shelf” (COTS) components for production, the PoC will probably use the same (or similar) components and jump a few steps in it’s development. For instance, let’s say you’re developing a rainwater tank monitoring system and you need sensors, actuators and a controller. If the most cost effective way to develop a production product is to bring together these components from COTS components, you can use the same components for the PoC, hence it will be a closer replica of the final solution.
Once you have a PoC, what do you do with it? You use it to demonstrate your idea can work and you make it known to all stakeholders that is the case. It’s a great way to illustrate your thoughts to stakeholders as they can readily relate to something they can see and touch rather than a spec sheet. In addition it proves technical feasibility and that’s the most important aspect.
A PoC is not a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP). These two versions are one step and two steps further respectively, and hence more involved.
So how much does it cost to develop a PoC? Typically it will be between 1/5 to 1/20 of the development cost of the final product hence starting from a few thousand dollars. The cost is mostly in the development time of the PoC – the design, the sourcing of COTS components, connecting them together and most probably some software development to customise operation.
As you can probably guess, PoCs are something we do here quite often at Electronics By Design, and are fully supportive of their existence.