1. Introduction to the Product Development Process
Jonathan Weaver
UDM Mechanical Engineering Department

2. References
Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger: Product Design and Development. Third Edition. McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Ullman, David G.: The Mechanical Design Process. Second Edition. McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Pugh, Stuart: Creating Innovative Products Using Total Design. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1996.
Bishop and Magleby: A Review of Technology Push Product Development Models and Processes, Proceedings of DETC’04, DETC

3. Big Opportunities Come From Big Problems
Show khosla9.mp4 (available at STVP)

4. Picturephone: The Answer to a Question Nobody Asked

5. Agenda Intro to Product Development
A Generic Product Development Process
A Closer Look at the Concept Development Phase
IDEO as an Example
What does all of this have to do with design, innovation, and creativity?
Final Remarks

6. Product Development Product:
A product is something sold by an enterprise to its customers.
Product Development:
Product development is the set of activities beginning with the perception of a market opportunity and ending in the production, sale and delivery of a product.
Here we will focus on products which are engineered, discrete, and physical.

7. Who Designs and Develops Products?
Product design is an interdisciplinary activity requiring contributions from nearly all the functions of a firm
A function (in organizational terms) is an area of responsibility usually involving specialized education, training, or experience
Three functions are almost always central to a product development project:
- Marketing
Design
Manufacturing

8. The Challenges of Product Development
Some of the characteristics that make product development challenging are:
Trade-offs
Dynamics
Details
Time pressure
Economics

9. The Product Development Process
A process is a sequence of steps that transforms a set of inputs into a set of outputs
A product development process is the sequence of steps or activities that an enterprise employs to conceive, design, and commercialize a product
Some organizations define and follow a precise and detailed product development process, while others may not even be able to describe their processes

10. A Generic Product Development Process
We will consider here a generic product development process that can be used in a market-pull situation
The input to the process is a mission statement and the output of the process is the product launch
Mission statement: identifies the target market for the product, provides a basic functional description of the product, and specifies the business goals of the effort; results from a well-executed product planning phase
Product launch: occurs when the product becomes available for purchase in the market place

11. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
One way to think about the product development process is as the initial creation of a wide set of alternative product concepts and then the subsequent narrowing of alternatives and increasing specification of the product until the product can be reliably and repeatably produced by the production system

12. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Concept
Development
System-Level
Design
Detail
Testing and
Refinement
Production
Ramp-Up
Product
Launch
Mission
Statement
Planning

13. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Note: Rarely does the entire process proceed in purely sequential fashion, completing each activity before beginning the next. In practice, many of the activities may be overlapped in time and, at almost any stage, new information may become available or lessons learned which can cause a loop back or iteration. There is little point to cluttering the process diagram with overlaps and iterations, so we’ll use the simplified “appearing linear” model.

14. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Concept development:
The needs of the target market are identified, alternative product concepts are generated and evaluated, and a single concept is selected for further development
A concept is a description of the form, function and features of a product and is usually accompanied by a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products, and an economic justification of the project

15. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
System-level design:
Includes the definition of the product architecture and the division of the product into subsystems and components
The final assembly scheme for the production system is usually defined during this phase
The output of this phase is usually a geometric “layout” of the product, a functional specification of each of the product’s subsystems, and a preliminary process flow diagram for the final assembly process

16. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Detail design:
Includes the complete specification of the geometry, materials, and tolerances of all the unique parts in the product and the identification of all the standard parts to be purchased from suppliers
A process plan is established and tooling is designed for each part to be fabricated within the production system
The output of this phase is the control documentation for the product

17. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Testing and refinement:
Involves the construction and evaluation of multiple pre-production versions of the product
Early (alpha) prototypes are usually built with production-intent parts (parts with the same geometry and material properties as intended for the production version of the product but not necessarily fabricated with the actual process to be used in production)

18. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Testing and refinement (Cont.):
Alpha prototypes are tested to determine whether or not the product will work as designed and whether or not the product satisfies the key customer needs
Later (beta) prototypes are usually built with parts supplied by the intended production process but may not be assembled using the intended final assembly process
Beta prototypes are extensively evaluated internally and are also typically tested by customers in their own use environment

19. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Testing and refinement (Cont.):
The goal of the beta prototypes is usually to answer questions about performance and reliability in order to identify necessary changes for the final product

20. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Production ramp-up:
The product is made using the intended production system
The purpose is to train the work force and to work out any remaining problems in the production process
The artifacts produced during production ramp-up are sometimes supplied to preferred customers and are carefully evaluated to identify any remaining flaws
The transition from production ramp-up to ongoing production is usually gradual and continuous

21. A Generic Product Development Process (Cont.)
Production ramp-up (Cont.):
At some point is this transition, the product is launched and becomes available for widespread distribution.
Next a deeper look at Concept Development – arguably the most critical stage of the process!

22. Concept Development Establish Target Specifications Identify Customer
Needs
Analyze
Competitive
Products
Generate
Product
Concepts
Select a
Concept
Refine
Plan Remaining
Development
Project
Perform
Economic
Analysis
Mission Statement
Development Plan

23. Concept Development (Cont.)
Identifying customer needs:
The goal of this activity is to understand customer’s needs and to effectively communicate them to the development team
The output of this step is a set of carefully constructed customer need statements, organized in a hierarchical list, with importance weightings for each need
Many breakthrough innovations are the result of addressing unarticulated customer needs detected by careful observation of customers and anthropological research by the developing team

24. Concept Development (Cont.)
Establishing target specifications:
Specifications are a precise description of what the product has to do
They are the translation of the customer needs into technical terms
Targets for the specifications are set early in the process and represent the hopes of the development team
The output of this stage is a list of specifications
Each specification consists of a metric and a target value for that metric.

25. Concept Development (Cont.)
Analysis of competitive products
(competitive benchmarking):
An understanding of competitive products is critical to successful positioning of a new product and can provide a rich source of ideas for the product and production process design
It is performed in support of the specifications activity as well as in support of concept generation and concept selection

26. Concept Development (Cont.)
Concept generation:
The goal is to explore thoroughly the space of product concepts that may be applied to meeting the customer needs
It includes a mixture of external search, creative problem solving within the team, and systematic exploration of the various solution fragments the team generates
The result of this activity is usually a set of 10 to 20 concepts, each typically represented by a sketch and brief descriptive text

27. Concept Development (Cont.)
Concept selection:
Is the activity in which various product concepts are analyzed and sequentially eliminated to identify one preferred concept
In some cases, “proof of concept” prototypes may be necessary to evaluate the function of various concepts and/or “form models” may be used to evaluate customer reaction to ergonomics and style
The process usually requires several iterations and may initiate additional concept generation and refinement

28. Concept Development (Cont.)
Refinement of specifications:
The target specifications set earlier in the process are revisited after a concept has been selected
At this point, the team must commit to specific values of the metrics reflecting the constraints inherent in the product concept, limitations identified through technical modeling, and trade-offs between cost and performance

29. Concept Development (Cont.)
Economic analysis:
The team, often with the support of a financial analyst, builds an economic model for the new product
This model is used to justify continuation of the overall development program and to resolve specific trade-offs among, for example, development costs and manufacturing costs

30. Concept Development (Cont.)
Project planning:
The team creates a detailed development schedule, devises a strategy to minimize development time, and identifies the resources required to complete the project
The major results of the concept development phase can be usefully captured in a contract book that contains the mission statement, the customer needs, the details of the selected concept, the product specifications, the economic analysis of the product, the development schedule, the project staffing, and the budget

31. Adapting the Generic PDP
The process shown so far is generic, and particular processes will differ in accordance with a firm’s unique context

32. IDEO
Next, let’s watch how one particular firm develops a product, As we watch, think about the following questions:
Does IDEO follow a structured process?
If so, how does it compare to the generic process just presented?
What are the key enablers allowing IDEO to innovate?
Note: dvd available for purchase from ABC News (the Deep Dive Episode). A lower resolution version and can be found online; a separate file will be posted which links to that version.

33. Discussion What do you think of the resulting cart design?
What does all of this have to do with design, innovation, and creativity?

34. Final Remarks
It is extremely important to follow a structured process to develop a new product or a new idea
A structured process and creativity are by no means mutually exclusive
We have presented a generic product development process which can be “fine tuned” for the particular types of products that your team (or company) develops
There are opportunities for creative, innovative solutions at ALL phases of the product development process!
A poor concept, flawlessly executed, will never be competitive!