The product life cycle for manufacturers starts from a simple pattern of sales and profits over time, and the stage a product is in can change how it is designed, made and supported. This guide is for product developers, small manufacturers and owners of equipment that is no longer made, and it covers what each stage means for design and production and what to do when a part is discontinued.
Which Four Stages Make Up the Product Life Cycle for Manufacturers?
The four stages are introduction, growth, maturity and decline, and each one describes how sales and profits are moving.
- Introduction: Sales are low and profits are small or negative because costs are high. The product is modified often, distribution is limited and many new products fail.
- Growth: Sales rise at an increasing rate and profits are healthy. Competitors enter, and near the end of the stage prices usually start to fall.
- Maturity: Sales still grow, but at a decreasing rate. Common tactics are extending the product line, modifying the product and cutting prices.
- Decline: Sales and profits fall, at a pace set by changing tastes and by how quickly new products arrive.
A temporary dip in sales is not the same as decline, so confirm the trend before changing course. How a design moves through the early stages is covered in our product design basics guide.
What Does Each Stage Mean for Design and Production?
Each stage pushes the design and the making method in a different direction. In introduction the design is still being modified, which can favor methods that tolerate change, such as 3D printing. Our guide to when a prototype is ready for production covers the checks before a design is locked.
In growth, volume rises and economies of scale start to matter, so the design should suit a process that can meet that volume. What the making method does to a design is covered in our fundamentals of product design guide.
In maturity, firms often modify the product and extend the line, which can send the design back for changes to cost and variants. In decline, the question shifts from making more to keeping what already exists running, which is when parts can start to disappear.
Can a Product Come Back From Decline?
Sometimes, because improving a product can move it back to the introduction stage if customers accept the changes. A redesign that answers the reasons customers left is often the engineering side of that move.
What Happens to Parts When a Product Reaches Decline?
At some point a manufacturer or supplier can stop producing or supporting an item, and anyone still using that item may have no source for parts. A United States Department of Defense guidebook (SD-22, 2006) defines diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages (DMSMS) as the loss, or impending loss, of manufacturers or suppliers of items or raw materials.
The guidebook is written for defense programs, but many of its responses carry over to anyone with a discontinued product. It lists about 30 options, including buying enough parts up front to cover production and repair, finding an existing substitute, modifying or redesigning the end item and finding an aftermarket producer who can reverse engineer it. Reverse engineering is one option when stock is gone, no substitute fits and a redesign would change too much.
Which Steps Replace a Part That Is No Longer Made?
You capture the geometry of a surviving part, model it in CAD (computer-aided design) and make a new one. Barcade’s Quick & Crash arcade controllers show how this works.
The original handles were injection molded in thin-walled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), and with the originals unavailable, Barcade sent samples in varying condition. Scanning every part gave us a digital assembly to study for weak points, and each part was modeled in CAD. Before any mold was made, 3D-printed prototypes were test-fitted on one of the arcade cabinets Barcade had in service.
The final handles are urethane resin castings from silicone molds. They fit the original electronics without changes to the cabinet hardware, and they are far more durable than the originals. The full project is in our Barcade controller case study. This path is our reverse engineering service, and we scan, design, make and inspect in one place.
Which Records Are Worth Keeping Before Decline?
Keep the design files, the drawings and a record of the materials. A part is easiest to remake from good records, and poor quality digital files are among the problems people bring to us. If the files are gone, a surviving part can still be scanned, the same path as the Barcade handles. Keeping spare parts is a small-scale version of the buy-ahead option in the guidebook. If a product or part you rely on is no longer made, tell our Brooklyn team about it on 718-557-9578 or through the contact page, and say what you need remade.
Sources: OpenStax Introduction to Business, second edition, and the United States Department of Defense DMSMS Guidebook (SD-22).
