Course #: TIM 530

Course Name: Managing New

Product Design and Development
Instructor: Naren Peddibhotla, Ph. D.

Online course
Semester: Spring 2015
Section 35

Course (Catalog) Description:

Regardless of the industry or business involved, careful attention must be given to the way new products
are designed and developed. Various aspects of product design and development are studied; including
the functions of research and development, marketing, finance, design, manufacturing, and technical
specifications. Special attention is given to the tools and methodologies necessary in the creation and
development of a new product. An important focus of this course is on the challenges and perspectives
presented by products that result from high technology environments or are themselves hightechnology products.
Introduction:
TIM 530 introduces prospective managers to the new product development process and some of the
tools, techniques, and organizational structures required for successful product development in today's
competitive marketplace. The management of the process of designing and developing new products
that is covered in this course is an important component of the management of innovation in an
organization, which is the subject of other complementary courses in the MBA program in Technology
Management. The text used in TIM 530 supplies a step-by-step view of how new product development
typically proceeds (or should proceed) in manufacturing firms. Additional assigned readings and class
discussions will further examine issues raised in the text, and introduce new techniques, challenges and
deviations. Students are encouraged to apply what they learn to a variety of contexts as part of course
assignments including exercises and a project in which they design a new product.
Credit Hours: 3
Course prerequisites: TIM 500. In this course, I will also assume that you have been exposed,
either as an employee or a customer, to processes that are part of most organizations.
Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

Describe and understand the basic concepts associated with the design and development of new
products in organizations and the activities that comprise the six phases of the product development
process (as demonstrated in your participation in discussions on the reading material).
Apply your understanding of the above concepts to real-life organizational contexts involving the
development of new products (as demonstrated in your work on the individual exercises and group
project).

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Required Text and Materials:

For information on obtaining reading material, please also go to either of the following sites:
SUNY PI Banner website:
https://banner.sunyit.edu/pls/prod/bwckschd.p_disp_syllabus?term_in=201501&crn_in=2072
Alternatively, go to banner.sunyit.edu and then choose the "Class Schedule Search with Textbooks"
link. Then choose the "Spring 2015" term from the drop-down menu. On the following page, select
Technology Innovation Managmnt from the Subject list, and enter 530 in the Course Number text
box. Then click on "Class Search" button to search for your course. On the next page you obtain, choose
the "Syllabus Available" link below the course's name.
The course website: http://sunyit.sln.suny.edu.
Required Reading:
Textbook
The following textbook covers the subject of new product design and development:
TITLE: Product Design and Development; AUTHORS: Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger; EDITION:
Fifth; PUBLISHER: McGraw-Hill Irwin; PUBLISHING YEAR: 2011; ISBN NUMBER:
9780073404776
Articles, lecture notes and course website content
Articles and lecture notes in each module are required reading. Instructions on how to obtain the articles
and cases as PDF files are provided on the course website. All other content on the course website,
including this syllabus, grading-rubrics, announcements, emails, and postings in discussion forums, also
form part of your required reading.
List of textbook chapters and articles to read for each module
U&E: Product Design and Development, Fifth Edition
Title
Module 1 reading (1/20 2/8)
Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 18
Module 2 reading (2/9 3/1)
Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9
Module 3 reading (3/2 3/22)
Chapters 10, 11 and 12
Module 4 reading (3/23 4/12)
Chapters 13, 14 and 15
Module 5 reading (4/13 5/3)
Chapters 16 and 17
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Source

Author(s)

U&E

Ulrich and Eppinger

U&E

Ulrich and Eppinger

U&E

Ulrich and Eppinger

U&E

Ulrich and Eppinger

U&E

Ulrich and Eppinger

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Recommended Reading:
1) The Wall Street Journal
This is especially helpful to learn about current topics in organizations and connect issues reported there
to course material in the reading discussion forums.
2) The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers (16th Edition).
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010. ISBN: 978-0226104201.
This is an excellent reference on writing style that you will find helpful for your exercises and project
reports.
Optional Reading:
You may find useful articles on current issues regarding new product design and development appearing
in the following sources as you progress through the course:

Business Week (www.businessweek.com), Forbes (www.forbes.com), Fortune (www.fortune.com),

Technology Review (www.technologyreview.com)

Article databases on the SUNY PI library website: http://www.sunyit.edu/library/lib/databases.inc

Office Hours and Contact Information:

Office Hours: In Donovan Hall 1273 (Tuesdays and Thursdays 3.30 5.30 pm, Wednesdays 3.30
4.30 pm and also by appointment during business hours, Monday through Friday)
Phone: (315) 792-7556 (office), (315) 314-3154 (mobile), Fax: (315) 792-7138. If I am unavailable
when you call, please leave a voice message with a number and some alternative times to call you back.
Email: via Course Mail on the course website (I usually log into the website at least once every
weekday).
Course Schedule:
Module 0 is open for one week before the semester opens. Each of the five modules during the semester
(Modules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) is open for three weeks. The course website also has a calendar of tasks and
due dates. The due dates for the various activities are as follows. For all due dates, the due time of the
assignment is 11.59 pm (Eastern Time, USA).
Date
Due
Module 1 (1/20 2/8)
Sunday, 1/25
Icebreaker assignment
First post in the reading material discussion
Sunday, 2/1
Evaluations of first posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Second post in the reading material discussion
Module 1 Exercises
Individual Project proposal
Sunday, 2/8
Evaluations of second posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Group Project preference document
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Date
Due
Module 2 (2/9 3/1)
Sunday, 2/15
First post in the reading material discussion
Sunday, 2/22
Evaluations of first posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Second post in the reading material discussion
Module 2 Exercises
Sunday, 3/1
Evaluations of second posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Group Project: Mission statement and customer needs analysis
Module 3 (3/2 3/22)
Sunday, 3/8
First post in the reading material discussion
Sunday, 3/15
Evaluations of first posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Second post in the reading material discussion
Module 3 Exercises
Sunday, 3/22
Evaluations of second posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Group Project: Concept sketches and target specifications
Module 4 (3/23 4/12)
Sunday, 3/29
First post in the reading material discussion
Sunday, 4/5
Evaluations of first posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Second post in the reading material discussion
Module 4 Exercises
Sunday, 4/12
Evaluations of second posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Group Project: Preliminary concept selection
Module 5 (4/13 5/3)
Sunday, 4/19
First post in the reading material discussion
Sunday, 4/26
Evaluations of first posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Second post in the reading material discussion
Module 5 Exercises
Sunday, 5/3
Evaluations of second posts of specific students in the reading discussion forum
Individual project paper
Group Project: Final concept, detail design, financial model and patent review
Course wrap-up (5/4 5/7)
Course evaluation survey
Method of Evaluation:
The icebreaker assignment in Module 1 will NOT count toward your course grade. It is intended to
allow class members to know each other better. Your work on the assignments in Module 1 will be
graded either as satisfactory (worth the maximum points) or unsatisfactory (worth half the
maximum points). The assignments in Modules 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be graded as described in the grading
rubrics.
Activity
Module Exercises (five)
Project (one)
Participation in the reading material discussions (five)
TOTAL PERCENTAGE

Percentage
25
50
25
100

The final grade for this course will be based upon the following percentages:
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Grade
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
F

Percent
95 and Above
90 94
87 89
84 86
80 83
77 79
70 - 76
69 and Below

Important Notice Please note that all core courses in the School of Business require a C or better, and
graduate students cannot graduate with more than 2 Cs overall.

Icebreaker assignment:
You are asked to update your personal information on the ANGEL course website by providing the
following information. In addition to introducing yourself to the class, this will also help you in
choosing members for your group for the class project. You need to log into ANGEL in order to update
your personal profile. After you login, please click on the Preferences button (that shows the
silhouette of a head as an icon) on the left border of your screen and then click on Personal
Information in order to do the following. Please make sure that the Viewable By option is set to
Students/Members for all the information.

Your digital picture;

A brief introduction about yourself;
Your learning objectives from this course and your experience with product design and
development;
Any rough ideas for a new product for your group project (see guidelines for selecting a new product
idea in the separate document about the group project);
A phone number where the class (especially your project group members) can reach you during the
semester;
The address of your LinkedIn profile in your ANGEL profile page under Contact Settings
Homepage. Create an account on the LinkedIn social networking site for professionals at
www.linkedin.com if you do not already have an account. See https://press.linkedin.com/aboutlinkedin for more information.
Apart from connecting with past, present and future associates on LinkedIn, I encourage you to join
professional groups, e.g., SUNY PI School of Business (http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/116691),
SUNY PI (http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/48671). Please click on the Join Group button on the
page at the link to join the respective group.

Module Exercises:
You are required to work individually and complete any two exercises at the end of the textbook
chapters assigned for reading in a given module. For example, if there are fifteen exercises in all the
chapters taken together in a given module, you need to complete any two out of those fifteen. Submit a
Word document (maximum 4 pages) containing your work on a given modules exercises by the due
date on the course website. Your responses must address each of the requirements in the exercises that
you choose to answer.
Please refer to the grading rubric for details on how points will be assigned and for formatting
guidelines.
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Project
The group project for this course is intended to provide students with an opportunity to apply the
concepts, frameworks and tools from the course to design and develop a new product. It mimics the
experience that product development professionals face in organizations, though with a comparatively
lower stress level and time pressure. Please refer to the separate documents listing the requirements for
each component of the project. Each project group will own the intellectual property that it creates as
part of this course. Each group is advised to discuss in advance about how to share among the members
any financial benefits arising out of the new product it creates.
Group composition: Minimum 3 Maximum 6 members.
You should form a group on your own by letting me know the names of your team members as part of
your project preference document due by Week 3. In deciding how many group members you wish to
have, you will need to balance the relative ease of coordination in a smaller group with the lower
workload per member in a larger group.
Please refer to the grading rubric for details on how points will be assigned and for formatting
guidelines.
Individual project paper
As part your group project, you are required to submit a 1-page individual project paper that summarizes
your own learning from the project and what you contributed to the team throughout the semester. The
deadline for submission of your individual paper is the same as that for submission of the final project
report.
Please refer to the grading rubric for details on how points will be assigned, for formatting guidelines
and how your performance on the individual paper will be used to assign your individual score on the
group project.
Class participation (related to the class material):
You are required to be on time, read the assigned material from the readings, and contribute to class
discussions by submitting posts in the designated discussion forum on the course website on a regular
basis. Since the course is designed so that we learn from each other, your input must stimulate further
discussion and thought and apply class material to real-world situations (e.g., from class reading
material, your own experience at work, or based on what you read elsewhere). A high quality post
contains information from the textbook / articles / lecture notes and applies a concept from the course
material to a specific context in a specific organization in a meaningful way. Such a post facilitates
understanding of the course material or topic and will receive the highest ratings.
The reading discussion also provides you an opportunity to prepare for your Group Project work by
clarifying the concepts in the assigned reading material for the module.

Your first post should address the following:

o Your response to any ONE of the Thought Questions at the end of the chapters in the
textbook Product Design and Development. How does the material from the assigned
textbook chapters in the current Module address this question? How do you justify your

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position? What example of a specific organization and product could you provide to illustrate
your point?
Your second post (and subsequent posts, if you wish to submit more than the required two posts)
should be a reply to a post by another student and address at least one of the following with respect
to the Thought Question addressed in the original post in that discussion thread. This Thought
question must be different from the one you addressed in your first post.
o What problem related to this Thought question could you identify in your group project?
Why? OR
o What problem related to this Thought question could you identify in another specific
organization and product (other than the ones discussed in the post to which you are
replying) with which you are familiar? Why? How does the material from the assigned
textbook chapters in the current Module address this problem?

You will also be required to evaluate the posts submitted by specific students in the Reading Material
discussion forum. The names of the students whom you will need to evaluate will be emailed to you in
advance. Students will not know the identity of their evaluators. Your ratings and justification for those
ratings will also form part of your participation in the Reading Material discussion. The points you earn
will be based on the ratings you receive from other students.
Please refer to the grading rubric for details on the required structure of each post and on how your
reading material discussion participation will be evaluated.
Accommodations for students with disabilities
If you are in need of accommodations due to a documented disability, please contact me as soon as
possible. I will need a copy of your current accommodations plan. If you do not have a current plan,
please contact Ms. Suzanne Sprague (315-792-7170; suzanne.sprague@sunyit.edu) at the SUNY PI
Disability Services Office (http://www.sunyit.edu/disability_services) to develop an accommodations
plan. This plan must be updated each semester. We will work with you to help you in your efforts to
master course content in an effective and appropriate way.
Late assignments and project reports
All assignments and project reports must be submitted by the specified deadline. Possible exceptions
include verified illnesses and family emergencies. In all situations outside these exceptions, for each day
(and / or partial day) after the deadline (up to five days) for a particular assignment, expect to lose 10%
of the maximum possible points for that assignment / project report. Work will not be accepted if it is
submitted more than five days after the deadline.
Appealing an evaluation:
To appeal an evaluation, you must email me an explanation of your position within seven days after
receiving the evaluation on an assignment. Please document your points with respect to the appropriate
course material, the syllabus, the grading rubric and the feedback, and provide justification as to why
you deserve more credit than what you received. After receiving your explanation, I will review the
entire assignment in question and the original evaluation, and will either revise the points you received
or retain the original evaluation. I will also email you an explanation of the result of the re-evaluation.

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Revising and resubmitting an assignment

If you earn less than 80% of the full points for any assignment that you submitted by the due date, I
encourage you to revise your work and submit it again for grading after reviewing the feedback. You
must submit your revision within seven days of receiving the evaluation and feedback on your original
submission of that assignment. In your revision, you must highlight the changes you have made in
response to the feedback. Your revised submission will not be reviewed if you do not highlight changes
made to the original submission. After reviewing your entire resubmitted assignment, I will revise the
points you received subject to a maximum of 80% of the full points. If your resubmitted assignment
earns fewer points than your original submission, I will retain your original points.
Interdisciplinary Content:
Interdisciplinary Content
International/Global
Ethical Issues
Political Issues
Legal/Regulatory Issues
Environmental Issues
Technology Issues
Demographic Diversity

Minimum Number of Class

Hours Devoted to the Topic
Please see note below

Required Graded Work Other

Than Exams
Please see note below

Note: Since this course deals with design and development of new products, a major portion covers
issues related to technology that includes both material tools (e.g., machines) and non-material entities
(e.g., software, methods). At the same time, this course is also about processes for developing new
products in organizations. Therefore, this necessitates an examination of political, legal / regulatory,
ethical, international / global, diversity and environmental issues. These aspects are explored in the
assigned reading, the exercises and project.
Interdisciplinary Skills:
Skill Area
Oral Communication
Written Communication
Critical Thinking
Working in Teams

Required Graded Work Other Than Exams

In-class participation (none in case of online course section)
Exercises, discussion (online / in-class) and project reports
Exercises, discussion (online / in-class) and project reports
Project

Code of Conduct:
Students are referred to the Student Handbook for SUNY PIs current Code of Academic Conduct
regarding plagiarism and other inappropriate academic activities (available at
http://www.sunyit.edu/pdf/student_handbook.pdf. In particular, please read pages 39-40).

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