1. Pearson Education Ltd. MindStudio
Chapter 5
The design of products and services
Pearson Education Ltd. MindStudio

2. Process design Process design Operations strategy
Improvement
Planning and control
Process design
Supply network design
Layout
and flow
Process technology
People, jobs and organization
Product/service design
Operations management

3. Key operations questions
In Chapter 5 – The design of products and services – Slack et al. identify the following key questions:
Why is good product and service design important?
What are the stages in product and service design?
Why should product and service design and process design be considered interactively?

4. Nature and purpose of the design activity
Products, services and the processes which produce them all have to be designed.
Decisions taken during the design of a product or service will have an impact on the decisions taken during the design of the process which produces those products or services and vice versa.

5. Example – The troubled history of the Airbus A380
What were the causes of the delays in the ‘time to market’ of the Airbus A380?
What were the effects of the delays in the ‘time to market’?

6. The design of products/services and processes are interrelated and should be treated together
Products and services should be designed in such a way that they can be created effectively.
Product/service design has an impact on the process design and vice versa.
Processes should be designed so they can create all products and services which the operation is likely to introduce.

7. The overlap of activities is greater in service design
In manufacturing operations, overlapping the activities of product and process design is beneficial.
In most service operations the overlap between service and process design is implicit in the nature of service.

8. Why is design so important?
UK Design Council Survey
Design helps businesses connect strongly with their customers.
90% of businesses growing rapidly say design is significant to them, only 26% of static companies say the same.
Design reduces costs by making processes more efficient. It can also reduce the time to market for new products and services.
Almost 70 % of companies seeing design as integral have developed new products and services in the last three years, compared to only a third of businesses overall.
Companies who were ‘effective users of design’ had financial performances 200% better than average.

9. What is designed in a product or service?
A concept
the understanding of the nature, use and value of the service or product;
A package
the group of ‘component’ products and services that provide those benefits defined in the concept;
A process
the way in which the component products and services will be created and delivered.

10. Example – Spangler, Hoover and Dyson
What was Spangler’s mistake?
What do you think makes ‘good design’ in markets such as domestic appliances?
Why do you think two major vacuum cleaner manufacturers rejected Dyson’s ideas?
How did design make Dyson a success?

11. Fully specified products and services
The product and service design activity is a process in itself
Transformed resources, e.g.
Technical information
Market information
Time information
The product/service design process whose performance is measured by its
Quality
Speed
Dependability
Flexibility and
Cost
Outputs
Fully specified products and services
Inputs
Transforming resources,
e.g.
Test and design equipment
Design and technical staff

12. The stages of product / service design
Evaluation and improvement
Prototyping and final design
Concept generation
Concept screening
Preliminary design

13. Concept generation
Ideas from customers formally through Marketing activities
Listening to customers – on a day-to-day basis
Ideas from competitor activity – For example, reverse engineering
Ideas from staff – Especially those who meet customers every day
Ideas from research and development.

14. Example – The Blow-Dry Bar
From a market perspective, why was the blow-dry bar successful?
From an operations perspective, why is the blow- dry bar successful?

15. Concept screening
Broad categories of evaluation criteria for assessing concepts
Feasibility – How difficult is it?
What investment both managerial and financial, will be needed?
Overall evaluation of the concept
The criteria for screening concepts
What return
in terms of benefits to the operation will it give?
Acceptability – How worthwhile is it?
Vulnerability – What could go wrong?
What risks
do we run if things go wrong?

16. Design involves progressively reducing the number of possibilities until the final design is reached
Large number of design options
CONCEPT
Choice and evaluation ‘Screens’
Uncertainty regarding the final design
Certainty regarding the final design
TIME
One design
FINAL DESIGN SPECIFICATON

17. Example – Square watermelons
What market-related questions would you ask before producing square watermelons commercially?
What finance-related questions would you ask before producing square watermelons commercially?
What operations-related questions would you ask before producing square watermelons commercially?

18. Preliminary design The component structure for remote mouse LEVEL 0
Upper casing
Control unit
Lower casing
Packing
LEVEL 1
Logo
Moulding
Battery housing
Mould-ing
Spring base
Button
Leaflet
Outer
LEVEL 2
Lead
Plug
Cover
Speaker
LEVEL 3

19. Design evaluation and improvement
There are various ways of evaluating preliminary designs.
These include: –
quality function deployment; –
value engineering; –
Taguchi methods.

20. Prototyping and final design
Prototypes are needed, so products and services can be tested.
Prototypes come in various forms: –
card models; –
clay models; –
computer simulations.
CAD has considerably simplified the production of prototypes.

21. Delay in financial break-even
A delay in the ‘Time to Market’ disproportionally delays the financial break-even point
Cash
Sales revenue
Cash flow
Delayed sales revenue
Delayed cash flow
Development costs
Development costs of delayed project
Time
Delay in time to market
Delay in financial break-even

22. Sequential and simultaneous arrangement of the stages in the design activity
First stage in the design activity
Sequential arrangement of stages
Second stage in the design activity
First stage in the design activity
Third stage in the design activity
Communication between stages
etc.
Second stage in the design activity
Simultaneous arrangement of stages
Third stage in the design activity
etc.

23. Where should the management attention be?
KNOWLEDGE AQUISITION
CONCEPT INVESTIGATION
BASIC DESIGN
INITIAL TESTS
PILOT PRODUCTION
MANUFACTURING RAMP-UP
LAUNCH
Ability to influence the final design
Management activity profile
TIME

24. Sorting out problems early saves greater disruption later
Slow time to market
Low
Fast time to market
Degree of agreement over design decisions and changes in design
High
Early stages of the total design activity
Later stages of the total design activity

25. Organization structures for the design activity
P.M.
F.M.
PURE FUNCTIONAL
ORGANIZATION
F.M.
P.M.
F.M.
INCREASING PROJECT
ORIENTATION
F.M.
P.M.
PURE PROJECT
ORGANIZATION
P.M.
F.M.
P.M.
P.M.
F.M.
= Functional manager
= Project manager