Entrepreneurship and innovation
Unfair advantage, Cost structure, Revenue structure, Channels/Marketing/Promotion.
The envisioned product is an integrated ecosystem comprised of a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Router, tooling for the CNC Router, work-holding solutions, Computer Aided Design (CAD) Software and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) Software. This product is designed to improve the viability teaching of CNC manufacturing processes in educational institutions including secondary schools, trade schools and tertiary education institutions (and possibly training environments within the manufacturing industry). These organisations are enthusiastic about teaching their students about CNC manufacturing and how to use CNC machines as the industry is growing quickly throughout the world. Furthermore, the adoption of this product will aid educational institutions in their ongoing fight to stay on the cutting edge of technology to give their students the best possible education and experience. Current solutions generally come in parts where the purchaser is required to select and purchase each of the components needed to make up the ecosystem individually which can lead to compatibility issues, a discontinuous user experience and a very sharp learning curve. These solutions are designed for industrial manufacturing applications and they are extremely powerful but very complex and hard to learn, far from ideal for a teaching tool. As industrial products, they also lack the additional safeguards put in place in educational environments. Furthermore, existing CNC machines are capable of inflicting thousands of dollars of damage upon themselves in a matter of seconds due to a minor user error, causing educational institutions to be very apprehensive about allowing students to use them. The product proposed is a cohesive ecosystem developed sole purpose of meeting the needs of educational institutions that contain all the required machinery and software. To fulfill this purpose safe, simple, consistent user experience designed to prepare people to use industrial machines will be the key focusses throughout the design. CNC machine, work-holding solutions and tooling included in the proposed product will majorly reduce the risk of damaging themselves through the inclusion of smarts and sensors that interface with software simulation to anticipate damage to the equipment to prevent it before it happens.
Unfair advantage: explain what is your ‘unfair advantage`: what makes your new product or service not easy to copy by potential competitors? Will your idea allow for strong protection by means of intellectual property rights? Are there other barriers to imitation that make that your product/service cannot be easily imitated? Please motivate.
Cost structure: what resources do you need to make and deliver the product/service to your customers? How much does it cost to buy or use those resources? (resources relate to the materials but also staff, and other assets). Provide for an overview of the costs involved.
Revenue structure: List your sources of revenue. How are you going to make money? What is your pricing strategy? Show evidence that your new product/service is "viable": when you compare your costs with your revenues: will you make a profit? Please motivate. In the case of a not-for-profit product/service: will your revenues cover your costs? Please motivate.
Channels/Marketing/Promotion: Through what channels will you educate customers and deliver your product/service (e.g., in-house sales force; wholly owned retail stores; wholesalers; third-party retailers; direct website)? How will you promote your new product/service to your target audience? What is your branding strategy?
