Collaborative development efforts with our customers and licensees are structured using a four-phase approach:

1. Product Definition
2. Concept Development
3. Detail Design
4. Production Design

This four-phase process is typically used for designing new systems when the solution is unknown. Each phase includes formal design reviews and documentation. The continuation of our development effort is contingent upon successful completion and acceptance of prior phases. This method ensures that the customer’s financial risk is minimized and that project deliverables remain consistent with the goals established in the Product Definition phase.

For product development, we follow a product design process that starts with the typical marketing and product requirement stages, and once approved, moves on to product planning and design, prototyping, then alpha, beta, and first-run production development and testing stages. All these stages are supported by documentation procedures and tools, design reviews, revision management, and other quality criteria.