Product Design

Product Design  

The biggest challenge today before the organizations is designing new products and launching them in the market The entire process of Need Identification to Physical Manufacture of Products involves three major phases viz. Marketing, Product Development and Manufacturing * Marketing suggests ideas for new products and provides product specification for existing product lines * Product Development translates the needs of customers given by the Marketing into technical specifications and designing various features into the product to meet the specifications * Manufacturing selects the processes by which the product can be manufactured

Product Strategies 

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Market Pull: According to this strategy, company “should make what it can sell”. Organizations should determine the needs for types of products and then design and manufacture them. Technology Push: This approach suggests that company “should sell the products what it can make”. Company with strong manufacturing base and R&D capability can adopt this strategy. Inter-Functional Approach: In this approach, new product introduction is inter-functional and requires cooperation among marketing, engineering and other functions. This is however difficult to achieve because of inter-departmental rifts and rivalry.

Product Lifecycle

A - Introduction B - Growth C - Maturity D - Decline

A

B

C

D

Phases in PLC 

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Introduction: Marks introduction of the product (new/old) into the market. Organizations have to invest heavily in advertisement to make the product familiar to the customers. Growth: Sales starts increasing at this stage because of acceptability of the product by the customer and competition is also limited. Maturity: The sales does not grow after attaining a point as competitors now split the market share. Decline: Sales start declining as competitors come out with better product features, advanced technology and reduced prices.

Characteristics of Phases of PLC Particulars Introduction

Growth

Maturity

Decline

Product Variety

High Variety

Increasing Standardization

Dominant design feature product

High Standard Commodity

Volume

Low Volume

Increasing Volume Consolidation

High Volume

Decreasing Volume

Industry Structure

Small Competitions

Medium Scale Companies

Few Large Companies

Survivors

Form of Competition

Product Characteristics

Product Quality & Availability

Price & Dependability

Price

Product Design Process Suppliers Marketing

R&D Customers

Competitors Idea Generation Product/Service Concept Screening Ideas

Feasibility Study Performance Specifications Preliminary Design Form Design Manufacturing/Delivery Design Revising & Functional Testing Production Specifications Specifications Design Design Prototypes Pilot Run & Final Test Final Design & Process New Product Launch Plans

Idea Generation and Screening   

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Design process begins with understanding the customers and their needs. Internal sources of idea generation include sales personnel, R&D, employees, market research, reverse engineering etc. External sources of idea generation include customers, competitive products, strategic position of the firm, environment, technology etc. Screening reduces the ideas to attractive, practicable and profitable few Each of the dimensions of the ideas to have a better evaluation, are scored on a 0 - 10 scale with weight attached as per dimension. The resulting aggregate score helps in deciding which idea to progress and which one(s) to drop.

Feasibility Study   

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It consists of a market analysis, economic analysis and technical & strategic analysis Market Analysis through customer analysis and market survey assesses the demand for the proposed product Economic Analysis aims at establishing the production and development cost and estimates profit potential using such methods as cost-benefit analysis, NPV, IRR etc. Technical and Strategic Analysis is concerned with technical viability of the product with respect to technology, process of manufacture, availability of materials etc.

Preliminary Design 

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It involves building a prototype, testing the prototype, revising the design and retesting until a viable design is determined. Design incorporates both form and function. Form Design refers to physical appearance of a product, shape, size, color, image, market appeal, special identification etc. Production Design is concerned with how the product will be made. It includes simplification, standardization and modularity. * Simplification attempts to reduce the number of parts, subassemblies and options into a product. * Standardization refers to use of commonly available and interchangeable parts and sub-assemblies. * Modular Design consist of combining standardized building blocks in a variety of ways to create a unique finished product.

Pilot Runs and Testing  Pilot

Run makes necessary adjustments in the manufacturing process before finalizing the design  Market Testing is carried out to check the acceptability of the product in the defined market and customer group  Market testing helps a firm to know whether customer will accept and buy this product on launching in the market

Final Design and New Product Launch 

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Final design consists of detailed drawings and specifications for the new product such as workable instructions for manufacture, job descriptions, work instructions and programs for computer assisted machines etc. Launching the new product/service involves coordinating the supply chain and rolling out marketing plans. Marketing and Production in fact should work in a coordinated way during this phase.

Product Reliability 

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Reliability is considered to be the most important product attribute ahead of price, style and many other product features It is defined as the probability that a product will perform as intended for a prescribed life time under specified operating conditions The product failure rate is highest during its initial use and also in the wear-out phase (“bathtub curve”) Reliability Engineering determines ‘failure rate’ and ‘useful performance life’ for each new product based on financial, technical and consumer considerations

Contd.. 

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The probability that a product will function successfully equals the product of the probabilities of all its sub-components The following design decisions are made by an engineer: 1) what reliability is required of each subcomponent to achieve the overall product reliability? 2) which subcomponents should be used most economically to meet this required reliability?

Ergonomic Considerations in Production Design 

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Endeavor to apply relevant information about human behavior to product design, methods of its use and environment in which people work As ‘worker system’ (human part of machine) can not be redesigned for increasing effectiveness, product/machine/equipment must be adapted to the worker In any product/equipment, all information displays must be located so as to ensure clear access and visibility

Techniques For Improving Design Process  Concurrent

Engineering  Multi-Functional Design Teams  Design for Manufacturing & Assembly (DFMA)  Design Review  Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Concurrent Engineering  

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Involves doing several activities in different functions simultaneously Sequential approach to product design involves considerable lead time to introduce the product in the market, missed market opportunity etc. if any change in the design is warranted and hence concurrent design is a solution to it Helps in doing the design right first time and avoiding waste of time between design, manufacturing, quality and marketing functions

Multi-Functional Design Teams  Cross-functional

teams serve to integrate the various activities of the product development effort and help in information sharing on a regular basis thus enhancing each other’s capabilities  The team approach places greater demands on members in terms of learning new skills enabling them to absorb changes rapidly

DFMA 

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Is a concept by which a designer thinks about how a product will be made as it is being designed so as to resolve potential production problems found early in the design process Basic principles of DFMA are: * minimize number of parts * use common components and parts * use standard components and tools * simplify assembly * use modularity to obtain variety * make product specifications and tolerance reasonable * design products to be robust

Design Review 

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Follows formal procedures before finalizing design for analyzing possible failures and assessing rigorously value of every part and component of it Following techniques can be used: 1) Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) anticipates failures and prevents them from occurring 2) Value Engineering (VE) focuses on function of the product rather than on structure and tries to maximize economic value of it or component relative to its cost 3) Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) lists failures and their causes in a tree format

QFD    

Translates voice of the customer into design requirements and product specifications Uses inter-functional teams from design, marketing and manufacturing QFD matrix helps in translating customer requirements into concrete engineering goals It is a tool that promotes better understanding of customer demands and design interactions, involves manufacturing in the design process and provides documentation of design process