How do YOU define prototype

[joeqsmith]

From a recent discussion on the Brymen BM786 DMM,  I had mentioned testing some prototypes of it.  Dave suggests they are not prototypes but offered no suggestions as to how to refer to them. 

Throughout my career, we would have various degrees of prototypes during the development cycle.   They would range from very crude to elaborate.  They may utilize components planned for the released product, or may not look or function at all like the final product.   The could be made from preexisting products. 

Some of the companies where I have been would do exploratory designs.  In these cases, we may make prototypes that are never intended to be developed into a product.  In these cases, we are rather exploring the technology.   

Eventually we move beyond the prototype stage.  We have commonly used terms like pre-release and production intent.  Larger companies I have worked for will eventually build some number of these that are production intent.  These will in all practical sense be the final product.  A typical end user would not be able to tell them apart by looking at them.   We then start the long cycles of design and product validation.   If all goes well, we release them to production.

That said, I recently saw some expensive audio pre-amplifier that looked like something a high school kid just starting out would have made.   So, it's not just the looks and how things are put together.   

In your neck of the woods,  what do you consider a prototype?


https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/bm786-continuity-resistance-can-it-be-changed-and-beep-level-lowered/msg5822949/#msg5822949

Brymen provided them per my request prior to the release and I hung onto them.  Of course, you knew that already.   

I wouldn't call those prototypes, would be the same production units as my first batch.

Call them what you like.  By the time you had ordered the first batch for sale, we had made several changes to these.   Most of which was shown on camera.

[Siwastaja]

IMHO prototype is something not meant to be sold or released to general public; can be very crude (but more then proof-of-concept or mock-up!); can be very close to a finished product, or anything between. Usually the difference is clear cut, but there are some rare cases when a prototype ends up being so close to finished product that it ends up being released without any differences so then if you had "too many" prototypes you might actually sell them as is. Then it becomes some kind of Schrödinger's prototype, which is and isn't a prototype at the same time.

[TimFox]

During my career, my employer made a distinction between an "engineering model", which was subject to measurements, tweaks, and re-designs, and a "prototype" that was expected to be the model put into production, based on information obtained from work on the engineering model.

[globoy]

During my career, my employer made a distinction between an "engineering model", which was subject to measurements, tweaks, and re-designs, and a "prototype" that was expected to be the model put into production, based on information obtained from work on the engineering model.

In my career I've always heard the definition Siwastaja used but I like this one better.  I'm going to adopt it for my client projects because I think it will help them have a better understanding of the state of the project ("You just got something working on your lab bench?  Great.  Can we start shipping next week?")

[RoGeorge]

Dictionary definitions would be the first to check:

prototype
noun, pro·​to·​type ˈprō-tə-ˌtīp

1: an original model on which something is patterned : archetype
2: an individual that exhibits the essential features of a later type
3: a standard or typical example
4: a first full-scale and usually functional form of a new type or design of a construction (such as an airplane)

The prefix prot-, or proto-, comes from Greek and has the basic meaning "first in time" or "first formed." A prototype is someone or something that serves as a model or inspiration for those that come later.

from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prototype

the business term
PRODUCTION
the first example of a machine or other industrial product, from which all later forms are developed:
- build/develop/create a prototype Manufacturers have built a prototype which will be shown at the forthcoming trade fair.
- early/first/working prototype Our first prototype digital camera appeared back in 1976.
- a prototype of/for sth The firm and its industrial partners plan this summer to put a prototype of an underwater power platform off the Florida coast.

from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prototype

There are also a few definitions in the "Authoritative IEEE Standard Terms Dictionary" (see the attached page from IEEE 100).


As for my own definition, I think the Greek genealogy explains the best what is the essence of the word, but the exact meaning may depend with the context.  Even more, I will expect the exact meaning to differ from one workplace to another.

[SteveThackery]

To me, prototype definitely means "a pre-release attempt at the manufacturable product".  It is an untested version of the finished item. Its purpose is to be subjected to all the tests that the product should meet, including functionality, regulatory compliance, customer acceptance testing, etc.  If everything is satisfactory, it can proceed without change to manufacturing.  If it fails, another prototype will be made and tested. Rinse and repeat.

It definitely does not include breadboard experiments, feasibility studies, proofs of concept, etc. 

The key element is that a prototype is created as the full and complete, finished product. It is the final stage in the product development stage, subject only to the final tests, as outlined above.

If what you have created as you proceed through the product development phase could not be released as the finished product then it isn't a prototype.

At least, that's how I see it! 

[AndyC_772]

I wouldn't be so prescriptive as some of the definitions here.

To me, a prototype is any thing that's made to test or demonstrate some or all features of a future product.

It might be a newly made thing which is itself a release candidate, or it could be a modified version of something that already exists. It may or may not be complete, or resemble a finished product.

[tszaboo]

Proof of concept: Something put together to test features or feasibility.
Prototype: Engineering is responsible for building, programming, reviewing and so on. May not be sold. May leave to customers, despite my repeated objections against it. Has parts that are intended to be final if it fulfills requirements
Zero-batch: Engineering and production together responsible for it. It's meant to prepare production. Can be sold.

[coppice]

Anything different between a sample and a production device that isn't merely cosmetic makes the sample a prototype at some level. If you are looking at things like prototypes of clothing, even cosmetic differences make the sample a prototype. Prototype is a broad term, since its a try out, and we try things out at multiple levels from "Will this key aspect of the product work well?" to "are we ready to go to pilot production?".

[joeqsmith]

Thanks for the feedback.  Interesting to read about so many differences.  I'm not too surprised.  Even among co-worker's, I have to be careful about what "works" means. 
 
Once engineering releases the design, production normally builds a small quantity following all the production processes.  Using terms like first article.  One unit is then ran through all of the tests that we would require for certification.  In some places I have worked, we had parties and celebrated the release.   Maybe the board of directors attends a gathering to watch the first unit put through its paces.   

Contrast that with one small company I worked left the testing to the end customer.  It was test-in-combat and common for me to fly out to some customer site to change a design at their location to solve a problem.  Bat shit crazy stories.   We literally did supply what I would normally consider a prototype to the customer.    That place did go under BTW.

[bdunham7]

In your neck of the woods,  what do you consider a prototype?

I don't think the concept is as clearly defined as it was before it became normal to ship half-baked products and let your customers do your final testing and quality control.  I think the prototype label can be appied to things as early in the development process as you'd like, even say on a breadboard.  I'd say a good estimation of where something stops being a prototype is at the first version shipped for retail (or end user) sale.  Things that should happen between the building of the last prototype and the first production device would be certifications and approvals, finalizing manuals, printing the box, etc.  So somewhere in that region. 

[Siwastaja]

I have to be careful about what "works" means.

Yeah. IMO, it should be doing roughly what the final product will be doing. E.g., an airplane prototype needs to fly. If many significant pieces are missing, for example if a router prototype parses TCP/IP packets but does not have any kind of routing table and is unable to send packets, then it's just a "proof of concept". If nothing is working, then it's a mock-up.

[joeqsmith]

I have to be careful about what "works" means.

Yeah. IMO, it should be doing roughly what the final product will be doing. E.g., an airplane prototype needs to fly. If many significant pieces are missing, for example if a router prototype parses TCP/IP packets but does not have any kind of routing table and is unable to send packets, then it's just a "proof of concept". If nothing is working, then it's a mock-up.

After working with people for a while,  and getting to know them,  I use phrases like "It Tom works".   People who know and work with Tom, will know if that it good or bad..  If someone tells me they have something working, I may ask, "Does it Tom work, or is this a Sam working".   HR would have a field day with me but I fail to get anything out of all those sensitivity classes...

[coppice]

Even among co-worker's, I have to be careful about what "works" means. 

Very much so. This was one of the first things I learned in my first job. We would build stuff, do some basic debugging, and then hand the device and a test spec to a junior technician to run through a formal set of tests. I found they were passing things that had serious problems. Then I observed how they ran through the tests. If a test failed they would repeat it a few times, and if they got a single success they logged a pass. They had no sense that things were supposed to work consistently. They acted like a failed test reflected badly on them, rather than the people who designed and prepared the thing they were testing. This is very strange, but very common, behaviour.

[m k]

What is a 0-series?

[EEVblog]

In the case of the BM786 in question there is absolutely no way Brymen would have sent you a "prototype" which hadn't already passed full compliance testing and wasn't 100% representative of the final shipped production unit. They didn't send me any 786 "prototype", and it's basically my exclusive meter, you can't buy it from anyone else.
And there is no way there could have been time to do that in Brymen very lengthy development cycles.
So what you got I would consider "early production run" or maybe a "pre-production" run as it's most often called, almost certainly the exact same run that I got.
In that case it's the exact same as the shipping unit, it's just the first short run they arranged at the assembler so various stake holder can ger their hands on the final unit early.
That's about as far as you can get from what the term "prototype" means in the industry IMO.

I got an early BM235 unit and helped to refine the design for them, this was before it got final compliance testing, and that was 12 months before it actually started shipping.
And even now I think you would be hard pressed to see any difference from that unit to the production unit. But technically I guess you could say that one was a "prototype".

So in the case of multimeters at least, the word "prototype" would mean anything that is before any formal compliance testing has been done IMO. Because after that testing happens you can't really change much.

[EEVblog]

For those interested, here are some 121GW "prototypes"
One had a 3D printed case and barely worked, with half the functions missing. Definitely "prototype".
The other one had the final production moulded case, but still wasn't fully functional, and IIRC it had an entirely different processor in it (PIC instead of STM32) than the final production unit.
And certainly wasn't compliance tested.
So again, definitely quite "prototype".

[EEVblog]

Speaking of prototype Brymen meters, mark this date, as I will be getting a new model Brymen meter soon.
I'll let you know when I get the first "evalutation" unit so you can all start your clock between then and when it actually gets released.

[joeqsmith]

...
So in the case of multimeters at least, the word "prototype" would mean anything that is pre-compliance testing IMO. Because after that testing happens you can't really change much.

That's another twist "pre-compliance testing" that I would never considered part of what defines a prototype.  Most of my career, I have conducted these tests throughout the design cycle.   Of course the tests will be highly dependent on what I am working on.  I have seen cases of designers not wanting to run any testing upfront.  They get close to production and then find problems that should have been caught early in the design cycle.   

Here is a good example of what I still consider a prototype.  This device was fully tested for compliance but was not something we would never produce.   Note that case is made from welded together parts rather than an a custom extrusion. 

[bdunham7]

Here is a good example of what I still consider a prototype.  This device was fully tested for compliance but was not something we would never produce.   Note that case is made from welded together parts rather than an a custom extrusion.

Do you mean that device was submitted to an outside lab for compliance testing and official approval?  If so, would you have been able to make the changes appropriate for production without resubmittting it?

I think the term "pre-compliance testing" has two different possible meanings.  One refers to in-house informal testing to help ensure that the product will pass official testing.  The other refers to a product that has not yet been officially compliance tested. 

[joeqsmith]

Here is a good example of what I still consider a prototype.  This device was fully tested for compliance but was not something we would never produce.   Note that case is made from welded together parts rather than an a custom extrusion.

Do you mean that device was submitted to an outside lab for compliance testing and official approval?  If so, would you have been able to make the changes appropriate for production without resubmittting it?

I think the term "pre-compliance testing" has two different possible meanings.  One refers to in-house informal testing to help ensure that the product will pass official testing.  The other refers to a product that has not yet been officially compliance tested.

In that case, I literally hand carried the device to an outside lab and camped out while we tested it.  There were no official approvals.   As far as changing the design for production, it was a prototype.  The requirements were not locked down.  The prototype was used for a talking point.  Rather than the development side of R&D, this was research.  We were looking at, could it be done, what would it roughly cost, what features would we want and what were the must haves. 

You may wonder why bother to test it at all.  Again, as a designer, I didn't like surprises.  The prototype could very well be shown to potential customers.  In this case, we had a customer who wanted to integrate it into their system and run their own tests.  I like it when things go smooth.... 

I've worked for four different companies over my career.   Their ability to test in-house varied and depended on the product line.   You can imagine that we did not test automotive electronics the same way we would test products developed for laboratory environments. 

[EEVblog]

That's another twist "pre-compliance testing" that I would never considered part of what defines a prototype.  Most of my career, I have conducted these tests throughout the design cycle.   Of course the tests will be highly dependent on what I am working on.  I have seen cases of designers not wanting to run any testing upfront.  They get close to production and then find problems that should have been caught early in the design cycle.   

In the case of multimeters, the manufacturers have a really good insight into if a design is going to pass approval or not, because most designs are just refinded iterations and small modifications of previous designs.
You might do some in-house surge and/or EMC testing etc early in the design process, but you aren't going to send it away for and pay all that money and wait several months for compliance testing if you know you are in the process of still refining the design.
This is why the very final step before release is the compliance testing. And in the case of your BM786, as I said, they would be 1st small production run units and hence not "prototypes" in any sense of the word.

Here is a good example of what I still consider a prototype.  This device was fully tested for compliance but was not something we would never produce.   Note that case is made from welded together parts rather than an a custom extrusion.

There is no hard and fast rule of what a "prototype" refers to, it is defined on an individual/company and market related basis.
I've worked on finished shipped products to customers (both internal and extermal) that you could certainly call "prototypes". Hand built, hand tested, hand modified etc.

[CatalinaWOW]

As far as general usage, in my career the word prototype was generally almost meaningless unless it had some qualifiers attached.  Prototypes exist at almost every phase of the development cycle.  Concept prototype may not be form, fit or function similar to the final product but at least proves that the key characteristic of the product can be achieved.  There may be further prototypes that establish either the possibility, desirability or something about different features of the final product.  Again might be form, fit or function.   Example might be the early prototypes for Touch Tone phones which experimented with grid vs circular arrangements of the input buttons.  Even after all the general characteristics are nailed down there might be production prototypes which might differ from the actual production form in terms of component vendors, method of assembly, location of assembly or any number of other things which anybody who has gone through the whole chain knows might affect the product in some way, but are least believed to be representative of the final product.  There might even be qualification prototypes required when bringing a new supplier on board or bringing up a new or relocated production line.

All of those things meet the dictionary definition, but without all the adjectives and other verbiage don't tell the whole story.

[joeqsmith]

That's another twist "pre-compliance testing" that I would never considered part of what defines a prototype.  Most of my career, I have conducted these tests throughout the design cycle.   Of course the tests will be highly dependent on what I am working on.  I have seen cases of designers not wanting to run any testing upfront.  They get close to production and then find problems that should have been caught early in the design cycle.   

In the case of multimeters, the manufacturers have a really good insight into if a design is going to pass approval or not, because most designs are just refinded iterations and small modifications of previous designs.
You might do some in-house surge and/or EMC testing etc early in the design process, but you aren't going to send it away for and pay all that money and wait several months for compliance testing if you know you are in the process of still refining the design.
This is why the very final step before release is the compliance testing. And in the case of your BM786, as I said, they would be 1st small production run units and hence not "prototypes" in any sense of the word.

Prior you wrote about pre-compliance but now it sounds like you are referring to what I would call certification.   Like your idea of what constitutes a prototype differs,  I suspect the same is true for pre-compliance.  I would imagine companies who self certify are able to turn that around much faster and have instant feedback to engineering.   
 

Here is a good example of what I still consider a prototype.  This device was fully tested for compliance but was not something we would never produce.   Note that case is made from welded together parts rather than an a custom extrusion.

There is no hard and fast rule of what a "prototype" refers to, it is defined on an individual/company and market related basis.
I've worked on finished shipped products to customers (both internal and extermal) that you could certainly call "prototypes". Hand built, hand tested, hand modified etc.

That's my point and we have seen just how much it varies in this one thread.

[EEVblog]

Prior you wrote about pre-compliance but now it sounds like you are referring to what I would call certification.   Like your idea of what constitutes a prototype differs,  I suspect the same is true for pre-compliance.  I would imagine companies who self certify are able to turn that around much faster and have instant feedback to engineering.   

Sorry, my use of the word "pre-compliance" was in context of the product having not had any formal compliance test done. I didn't mean mean to confuse that with pre-compliance testing that is usually done in house.
I'll modify that post so there is no confusion.

My original quote for reference:
"So in the case of multimeters at least, the word "prototype" would mean anything that is pre-compliance testing IMO. Because after that testing happens you can't really change much"

That's my point and we have seen just how much it varies in this one thread.

Sure, but in the case of the BM786 in question, it is absolutely not a prototype no matter what way you look at it, it would have come from the first small production batch just like mine did.