Sometimes a product can be purchased from a vendor and will only require branding application and packaging to save on cost sensitive products. Other times, a ground up design is made specifically for that company and all components are built to spec and exclusive to that brand. A middle ground, as shown here with the Oster cappuccino maker, is to keep the basic framework supplied by the vendor, modify the housings to be custom to a particular brand, and in this case, some of the mechanics. The simple 3 button interface was another aspect that had to have the interactions mapped out and communicated to the vendor in order to maintain the intuitive controls.
Joint Development Manufacturing
