New Balance is a Boston-based company that produces sportswear for children, women, and men. You have probably seen your neighbor jogging in some shoes with an NB logo, that is the New Balance logo. Athletic footwear is what gave New Balance the success they are currently enjoying, it is what they are mainly known for producing. For a brand ranked at number 993 among the top 1000 brands they must have a rigorous production process. Part of that process is product testing. This article will go in-depth on the methodologies they use during product testing. Let us know more detail about ‘New Balance Product Testing’.
New Balance Product Testing-
How Does New Balance Test Their Products?
New Balance mainly tests its products using a selected test group. After they produce a shoe, for instance, they send it out to the test group alongside a set of instructions. The testing period using this method takes an average of 5 weeks after which the test group provides feedback to New Balance in written form either through a questionnaire provided by New Balance or through a personal review.
The test group consists of individuals of different ages(kids, adults), different shoe sizes, different gender, different heights, and different shoe use cases(Some may use the shoes for running while others may use the shoes for playing basketball.), and different geographical locations(most of the product testers, however, are residents of the United States of America). They then use the test group to carry out various tests:
- Performance Test
- Durability test
- Appearance test
- Safety test
- Comfortability test
New Balance also tests its products before product production begins. They do this by reviewing their product designs. The design team produces the product design that is reviewed to ensure that the product is designed for manufacturability. Designing for manufacturability here refers to when the shoe design makes it easy for New Balance to produce the final product.
1. Performance Test
An example of performance testing is when New Balance uses a group of sprinters as a test group. The sprinters can time their runs and compare the times to the times they set with other shoes or previous New Balance shoes, this can serve as a metric indicator for shoe performance measurements.
2. Durability Test
At the end of the testing period, each individual in a test group is instructed to send back the shoes. New Balance measures durability by comparing the wear and tear of the test shoes to unused shoes.
3. Appearance Test
Appearance test is conducted through questionnaires or personal reviews. Each individual gives a rating of their appearance based on factors such as color and design.
4. Safety Test
Some of the shoes produced by New Balance Eg the New Balance Men’s Composite Toe 989 V1 Industrial Shoe is produced to be specifically used in areas where foot safety is required Eg in factories. The outer surfaces of the shoes are put through various strength tests such as dropping an object of a certain weight on the shoe. This activity can test the impact reduction property of the shoe.
5. Comfortability test
This test measures how the shoes feel, data as regards to this is obtained from each test group’s questionnaire responses. The specific questionnaire question is a multiple-choice question that contains the options: comfortable, very comfortable, uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. From the responses, New Balance can generate a comfortability ranking for each test shoe type.
Conclusion
In conclusion, product testing is an important part of a product’s lifecycle.It is a part that is given the necessary attention by New Balance. They obtain feedback from the test groups which is used to serve as a success measure for the product or inform future design decisions. Customer satisfaction also improves directly and indirectly. Customer satisfaction is affected directly in the sense that their issues may be directly addressed and indirectly in the sense that they feel involved in the production of the product by testing the products. This is why product testing is important to New Balance.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How can I become a New Balance product tester?
To become a New Balance shoe tester you must live in the United States. If you meet this criterion you can visit https://product.testing.newbalance.com. You are required to create a new account, after which you will fill out a form containing fields such as weight, heigh, city, state, shoe size, and shoe width. This information serves as your product test profile. If your application is successful, New Balance will add you to their New Balance Tester Community.
- How long does the product testing phase take?
It is important not to note that testing begins way before the final product is produced,Eg after the design phase. Taking this and the 4-6 week test group period into consideration, the testing period takes about 21/2 months. It is also important to note that a product can have multiple test blocks, with each preceding block informing the next test block.
