In June 2025, Anker recalled over 1.1 million units of its 10,000mAh A1388 PowerCore power banks due to serious fire risks. How to Prevent Battery Recalls: A Wake-Up Call for Power Bank Manufacturers, we also wrote a blog before. The recall was linked to a specific battery cell supplier and a potential defect in thermal protection design. As a result, a number of units overheated and posed fire hazards. While, for product designers and engineering managers, this event is a powerful case study. It shows how the factors affecting new product design and development must include both safety, collaboration, and risk mitigation from day one. By understanding all the factors affecting new product development, companies can reduce risks. Below, we break down each factor with respect to real design and development challenges.
1. Knowledge Management
Designing safe battery-powered devices requires internal access to technical standards (e.g., UL2056, UN38.3), teardown reports, thermal case studies, and vendor incident history. The Anker recall exposed how even trusted suppliers can introduce hidden risks affecting new product development processes.
Practical tip: Create an internal database documenting incidents like Anker’s, with cross-referenced root causes — such as lack of temperature sensors or substandard BMS ICs — and validated countermeasures (e.g., PTC fuses, dual NTC placement).
2. Market Orientation
Customers want portable chargers that are compact, fast-charging (USB-C PD), and safe for air travel. Anker’s affected model was designed for 20W USB-C fast charging. However, inadequate thermal margin around the charging IC and battery pack caused unexpected behavior under prolonged use. This highlights how market orientation counts among the various factors affecting new product development.
Design takeaway: When marketing a product for global portability, match expectations with real-world stress testing. This includes high-temperature scenarios in enclosed bags or during continuous fast charging.
3. New Product Development Process
An effective NPD process should include FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) for battery circuits and traceability of critical component specs. It should also have Design Validation Testing (DVT) protocols. The lack of redundant cutoff protections indicates gaps in addressing factors that affect new product development processes.
Best practice: Establish a gated design workflow where critical battery subsystems require third-party or in-house safety sign-off before advancing to EVT(Engineering Validation Test)/PVT(Production Validation Test).
4. New Product Development Speed
To meet competitive timelines, brands often reduce design loops. In Anker’s case, speed may have compromised cell sourcing checks or thermal modeling depth. As a result: a small defect scaled into over a million-unit recall, underscoring how speed itself is one of the factors affecting new product development outcomes.
Actionable idea: Use digital twin models for early-stage virtual validation — especially thermal simulation — without slowing timelines.
5. New Product Development Strategies
Anker markets safety as a core brand pillar. However, this incident proves that every product line, even low-cost SKUs, must uphold those standards. The recalled product lacked E-Marker cables, then could increase the risk of mismatched power negotiation. These issues serve as a reminder of factors affecting strategy in new product development.
Strategic shift: Integrate a “Safety Tier”strategy. For each product segment (basic, mainstream, premium), define non-negotiable safety thresholds. These should include overcurrent trip speed or housing V-0 certification.
6. New Product Development Teams
The challenge wasn’t just one engineer’s mistake but it was a systemic gap. Product, electrical, thermal, mechanical, and compliance teams must work together to manage factors affecting new product development. Teams must share responsibility for BMS logic, PCB heat layout, and enclosure flammability.
Team policy: Assign a cross-functional”battery safety squad”for any product using >5,000mAh capacity or fast charging over 15W.
7. Technology
The recalled model used a 21700 lithium-ion cell, chosen for high density and form factor compatibility. However, poor thermal dissipation from the central core, plus lack of graphite heat spreading, allowed hotspots to form under strain, a technological factor affecting the new product development outcome.
Tech investment: Use heat-spreading graphite films, copper planes under power ICs, and dual temperature sensors near charging MOSFETs. Opt for programmable BMS chips with adaptive cutoff thresholds.
8. Top Management Support
Recalls cost not only money but long-term reputation. Top management must invest in safety assurance labs, third-party audits, and longer pre-launch test periods. Understanding factors affecting new product development, top management should consider delaying a launch to validate cell safety could prevent losses.
Leadership action: Treat product safety metrics — thermal margin, field return rate, burn-in failure rate — as board-level KPIs, not just engineering stats.
Final Thoughts: Smarter Development Prevents Real-World Failures
The Anker recall demonstrates that battery safety isn’t a line item — it’s the result of systemic thinking, cross-team design diligence, and strategic commitment. By applying these 8 factors affecting new product design and development, brands can build safer, more scalable products that earn lasting trust. They must use technical discipline.
WokooDesign helps hardware teams integrate safety-first strategies through prototyping, compliance design, and thermal engineering expertise. Knowing factors affecting new product design and development is key. Let us help you future-proof your next battery-powered product.
