Read or watch below a recent Q&A video with Michael Smith, National Sales Manager at LNI, where he shares details on how a product branding idea comes to life through the LNI Concept to Creation process. 

LNI’s Concept of Creation process starts from the initial idea and flows through to the final production stage of the product branding. It is a thorough eight-step process and can be broken down into three key phases to help customers bring their branding products to life.  

The first phase is pre-production then we have a production phase and we conclude with the final phase of post-production. 

Pre-production phase 

The first phase involves a detailed customer brief. We consult with our customers on exactly what it is they are hoping to achieve, what their needs are, what their wants are, and what their requirements are, as an absolute minimum.  At LNI, we have a sales team and a technical team who will dedicate their time to consulting with our customers. That forms the customer brief, which we will then turn into a quote, and secure the work.  

We are often called to do the design as well and have very experienced designers on staff who can work with our customers to design their product based on their brief.  

Sometimes, we get a fully designed product from customers, which obviously makes our job a little bit simpler and that is a great way to receive it. At other times we get sketches on a piece of A4 but we have the in-house resources and skill to be able to work with that just as well.  

The next stage would be to do CAD. We need a 3D CAD model, particularly if tooling is required, like in our LunaKrome™ 3D badge process. We also have CAD engineers in-house. They develop the CAD model for our customer to approve prior to doing any other work with it. Once approved, we then use that CAD file model to produce the tooling. We have our own in-house CNC machining centre which means we do all the tooling here locally, in Victoria.  

Production phase 

Once we have the tooling and the tooling is commissioned, we then run a small sample run of parts and they would be production intent parts off the tooling. We submit those to our customer for approval along with any supporting paperwork like a PPAP - we can produce that at whatever level our customer requires for them to approve, along with the part itself. And that's all part of the production process.  

Once that's approved, we will then swing into our volume production run. It's a pretty rare occurrence for any changes to be needed at this stage because we have so many checks and balances leading up to this point. Our customer approvals along the way include:  

• colour approvals 
• art approvals 
• CAD approvals 
• tooling approvals.

So, it would be rare to do any further changes at this stage. However, as all our work is done here in-house, it can be quick and relatively painless to make changes, if required. 

Post-production phase 

Once we finish production of the volume run, we often have requirements from our customers for post-production activities.  

Typically, that may be assembling the badge into a template - and that would be an alignment template to facilitate installation onto the back of the vehicle or their product. These templates can be either reusable or disposable, printed or unprinted.   

Customers can also require products to be bagged and labelled, either in set lots or individually, which also helps with spare parts later down the track. We will do the bagging and labelling before the final inspection, packaging and then ultimately, deliver to our customer.  

Delivery can take various forms, it can be:  

• a bulk lot 
• JIT 
• Kanban 
• deliver to port of entry
• a single drop.

Timeframe 

Often customers will bring us in early in the pre-production phase, so we can systematically work our way through the process with them. Sometimes, we have months to be able to achieve that. Sometimes we get brought in very late into the program, so time is of the essence and if need be, we can deliver all this in six weeks. 

Our whole focus really is just satisfying the customer at the end of the day. 

Whether you are looking for Nameplates, Badges or Labels, contact the experts at LNI today