Portable LCD

An LCD projector is a type of video projector for displaying video, images or computer data on a screen or other flat surface. It is a modern equivalent of the slide projector or overhead projector. To display images, LCD (liquid-crystal display) projectors typically send light from a metal-halide lamp through a prism or series of dichroic filters that separates light to three polysilicon panels – one each for the red, green and blue components of the video signal. As polarized light passes through the panels (combination of polarizer, LCD panel and analyzer), individual pixels can be opened to allow light to pass or closed to block the light. The combination of open and closed pixels can produce a wide range of colors and shades in the projected image.

Metal-halide lamps are used because they output an ideal color temperature and a broad spectrum of color. These lamps also have the ability to produce an extremely large amount of light within a small area; current projectors average about 2,000 to 15,000 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) lumens.

Other technologies, such as Digital Light Processing (DLP) and liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) are also becoming more popular in modestly priced video projection.

ANNUAL UNITS SOLD

DD4U is planning to expand the business projection market by offering competitive product prices with high product quality. Our company is trying to focus the production in domestic market while promoting low production costs of the LCD projector. Typically, LCD projectors are in the low to midranges of the price spectrum. Where they once were strictly in the budget realm, steady improvements by our development team will result in our LCD projector models being the best in their class.

Pacific Media Associates (PMA), the worldwide market information experts on front projectors, has released the first findings from their just-completed annual survey, in which the manufacturers of projectors, optical engines, and components predicted that the worldwide market for projectors will reach 22 million units by 2014, up from about 700,000 units in 2010. In addition to that, the emerging category of portable projectors weighing less than a pound is expected big things from tiny pocket projection. Available in either stand-alone or embedded formats, the market for these convenient devices is predicted to reach 142 million units. The Pocket Projector Technology and Market Forecast Report presents market forecasts through 2018 and discusses challenges including brightness, battery life and competing technologies.

Therefore, from DD4U perspective, we expect a medium number of production and sales of our LCD projectors due to the customer recognition of a new brand. We are targeting to sell 210, 000 units for the first three-years in order to have good market position.


DEVELOPMENT TIME



Before we start with any product development, first we at DD4U define the product that we want to produce. At this stage we define the customers need. We list out the customers’ requirement that we obtain from a survey we conducted before.
                
Next stage, we list down the entire concept that we think possible with the LCD to be produced. Example of concept selection table is as shown below:


After we finalize with the product concept, we make a prototype of the LCD. From the prototype, we test the reliability of LCD to be produced. At this stage, if there is any error with the prototype, we will improve it before we make the real LCD for the market used.
               
After we overcome with all possible error from the data we collected in the prototype stage. We come out with the real product. We market the product and we obtain feedback from the customers for future improvement on the development of the new products.


SIZE OF DEVELOPMENT TEAM




LCD projector production is generally developed in many phases. First, in pre-production, pitches, prototypes, and projector design documents are written. If the idea is approved and the developer receives funding, a full-scale development begins. This usually involves a 20–100 man team of various responsibilities, such as designers, artists, programmers, testers, etc. The projector productions go through development stages until finally being released. New LCD projector are advertised, marketed, and showcased at related carnival promotion.

For the size of development team, we estimate 40-person involved in the project. Then, they will be divided into 4 small teams, making sure there was a developer, tester, customer/requirements person, writer, some sort of project-manager-type person on each team, and add however many other developers and testers the team thought they needed. We choose to have many testers because there are so many possibilities of boards, OS’s, firmware versions, and some software, that even with combination testing approaches, the fact that they felt they needed to boot all the way each test meant no test could take fewer than 5 minutes. That means a given tester is limited in the number of experiments he/she can do. If they had more time, maybe they wouldn't need as many testers, and the developers would have to do more testing.


DEVELOPMENT COST

 ANNUAL UNITS SOLD: 70,000 UNITS/YEAR
COMPONENTS
COST (RM)
Lenses
400
LCD Projector Lamp
300
Power Supply
200
Cooling Fan
170
Motherboard Circuit
250
Exterior Components
200

Cost per 1 unit LCD Projector = RM 1520

Annual cost of LCD Projector = RM 1520 x 70,000 units = RM 106,400,000

Sales price of 1 unit LCD Projector = RM 3000

Annual revenue of LCD Projector = RM 3000 x 70,000 = RM 210,000,000

Annual profit = Annual revenue- Annual cost
                       = RM 210,000,000 - RM 106,400,000 = RM 103,600,000