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What is the typical time from prototyping to just before consumer testing
Hi All,
I am Brian and I have been a formulator for around 2 years, I have not worked in any big companies eg P&G, Unilever before so I am not sure of what would be the standard for the timeline. What would be the typical time allowed for a formulator to work on a project from prototyping to just before consumer testing? Currently I am looking at the following procedures with the approximate timelines1) Prototyping (1 month)2) Internal testing with the other formulators3) Modification according to feedback (2 weeks)4) Accelerated Stability testing (1 month)5) Microbiological study (1 month)6) Consumer testingPlease help to point out if I miss out any important step
With this, is prototyping 2 products in 3 months reasonable? Appreciate all the feedbacks -
3 Replies
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This will depend on the project but here is the typical way it worked at the company for which I worked.
1. Ideation phase - This is when ideas for new products are generated. These are led by marketing and they take place about 1 year prior to when Walmart resets their shelves. Since over 40% of sales were done at Walmart all new product introductions were geared toward their schedule. This phase goes on for about 2 months and involves brainstorming sessions, market research, concept writing and focus groups. From an R&D perspective you will be involved in this to help generate ideas but primarily to put the breaks on excessive/impossible claims or ideas that marketing wants to launch. After this phase you’ll have about 8 months left for the remaining phases. This is because you need to have everything done and shipped to Walmart 2 months before they reset their shelves.2. Development phase - This is when R&D has to create formulas that match the concepts. Since Marketing will not want to pick a single concept you’ll often have to develop formulas for 2 or 3 different concepts. Typically, a new concept will launch with at least 2 or 3 SKUs and if it is a product like shampoo, there will also be a companion conditioner. So, you’ll need to develop up to 20 near finished formulations. Maybe you have a month to prototype but the reality is that it is much more efficient to take an existing formula and modify it to match the concept. Prototyping consists of figuring out the proper fragrances, figuring out the right colors, and choosing the claims ingredients that best support the story. There is no time to work on product performance.Picking the fragrances & choosing colors can take a month or more. Then you’ll have to do your preliminary stability tests. You’ll have a good idea after about a month whether the fragrances & colors you are testing will be stable. At this point you’ll have about 4 months left.During this time you’ll have to do a consumer test. You’re hoping that marketing has narrowed down which concept they will launch but they won’t. You may lose one concept but there is almost always 2 concepts in which you are “parallel pathing” because marketing won’t want to decide. This means double the work for you.While the consumer test is going on you can do the full stability test. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the finished packaging because that decision hasn’t been nailed down. So, you’ll have to use a stock package with a similar resin in your stability testing. It won’t be exactly what you will launch but it will be “close enough.”Consumer testing will take about 8 weeks and there will be no time to make many changes when you get the results. You hope you got it right the first time.3. Commercialization phase - At this point you should have everything ready including your formulas, specifications, claims testing, and stability testing. You will do a scale-up and observe the first production run. The final packaging should be ready so you’ll have to do an official stability test on the first production run. This will happen about 8 weeks before it has to get to Walmart. You hope there are no problems.So, that was the long answer. The short answer is that it takes 1 year to launch a product and you get about 1 month to do any real prototyping. -
Depends on your scale of production. I’m usually offering test product to our testers within weeks of receiving a new sample. Launching it as a commercial product is a different matter though.
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Thanks Perry and Belassi for your wonderful insight. It is very informative.
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