OEM and ODM product development

In OEM, the product is designed or specified by you and the factory produces it under your brand: the design is yours and the factory executes it. In ODM, the factory already has a developed product and you customise it — brand, colour, packaging, functions — without starting from zero. ODM is much faster and cheaper and is usually the entry point; OEM gives more control and differentiation but requires investment in tooling and development.

The cost depends entirely on the product and on how many parts are new. The costs that always appear are the mould or moulds, the development samples, the production tooling and, where applicable, certification testing. A simple injection-moulded plastic product starts with a single-part mould; an electronic product adds board development, firmware and certification. It is quoted case by case, and it is worth doing before deciding whether the project is worthwhile.

The mould must be owned by the client, and ownership has to be put in writing before it is paid for. A mould that the client pays for but that stays in the factory's hands is one of the most expensive dependencies there is: it ties you to that supplier permanently, because changing factories means paying for the mould again. In our projects the mould is invoiced in the client's name and its ownership is documented in the contract.

Your own brand and packaging are the standard arrangement. We apply the brand to the product — screen printing, laser engraving, labels — and produce the complete packaging: box, manual, inserts and the legal labelling required by the destination market. Packaging is also where logistics cost can be optimised the most, because its design determines the volume you pay for on every shipment.

The certifications required depend on the product category. In Mexico, products within the scope of an NOM need the corresponding certificate before they can be imported, and the most common categories are electrical material, toys, infant products, textiles and footwear. In Brazil, Inmetro certifications apply to several categories. Laboratory testing is carried out on the finished product, so it should be planned for at the design stage rather than after production.

An ODM project with brand and packaging customisation can be ready in four to eight weeks. An OEM development from scratch, with tooling and validation samples, usually takes three to six months to reach mass production, depending on how many iterations the product needs and on certification timelines.