A Manufacture's Perspective
A post earlier in the week got me to thinking that besides learning a new word, I might be able to expand on the opportunities available today for a manufacture for product development. When I read the posts, I came away with the impression that you, the shooters, have significantly underestimated your role in the advancement of the sport. As a manufacture, our strength is making things, you are the experts in developing and improving products; you have taken the sport of muzzleloading to where it is today, not the manufactures. It is your requests for better products that drive the sport. We would probably be happy selling you round balls and patches for another few hundred years, but no, you screwed that all up and we have been forced to change and improve.
Forums like this one open the door to manufactures that was not available before. It puts us in direct contact with the best of the experts. Prior to this if we wanted to develop an innovative product we had to already be an expert in the field, or would hire a consulting company to evaluate the product, or would just bring the product to market and see if anything sold.
For a manufacture to become an “expert” in anything but manufacturing, takes a long time and is not really practical. Probably more products have been developed by a user generating an idea and then taking it to a manufacture for production. Hiring a consulting company to test the market viability of a product is always skewed toward the manufacture getting back a favorable result for what they have already invested a lot of money into. It is just our nature to expect confirmation of our idea when we are paying cash for the evaluation. Do you really think us, the consumers, were clamoring for AMC that we wanted the Pacer, or do you think AMC hired a consulting company and said “hey, look at this isn’t this the coolest car ever, let us know how many millions we are going to sell the first year”. Lastly, there is the consumer be damned approach of “it is a great product because I say so and you better buy it“. It always amazes me to go to the SHOT Show every year and see these guys with $4,000 booths trying to sell products that may perform a function, but are not really marketable. I tell my friends that if I come up with a poor idea and am fixated on it, keep hitting me with a ball bat until I stop.
Today, it is different; we have access to you to get ideas from, to develop products, to test them and to refine them. You are the experts, we just make things. I was at another ML supplier in the Fall and three times a day, they scan all the posts looking for ideas and getting feedback on their products. I am pretty sure we all do this; why wouldn’t we? So, think a minute about your position and about how much influence you have; post your ideas and thoughts because we are listening.
Thanks,
Dave