Product Design Process

It is the transformation of an idea, needs, or wants by consumers or the marketplace at large, into a product that satisfies these needs. Steps in the Product Design Process

A. Idea Development
All product designs begin with an idea. The idea might come from a product manager who spends time with customers and has a sense of what customers want, from an engineer with a flair for inventions or from anyone else in the company.

Sources of Ideas:
Customers Competitors Benchmarking The process of studying the practices of companies considered best in class and comparing your companys performance against theirs. Reverse Engineering The process of disassembling a product to analyze its design features. Suppliers Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) Involving suppliers in the early stages of product design.

B. Product Screening
o Market analysis It consists of evaluating the product concept with potential customers through interviews, focus groups and other data collection methods. o Economic analysis It consists of developing estimates of production and demand costs and comparing them with estimates of demand. o Technical analysis It consists of determining whether technical capability to manufacture the product. Decision-Making Tool:  Break-Even Analysis - It is a technique used to compute the amount of goods a company would need to sell to cover its costs.

C. Preliminary Design and Testing

At this stage, design engineers translate general performance specifications into technical specifications. Prototypes are built and tested. Changes are made based on test results, and the process of revising, rebuilding a prototype, and testing continues.

C. Preliminary Design and Testing

At this stage, design engineers translate general performance specifications into technical specifications. Prototypes are built and tested. Changes are made based on test results, and the process of revising, rebuilding a prototype, and testing continues.

Product Design Process

Factors Impacting Product Design:

Design for Manufacture (DFM)  It is a series of guidelines to follow in order to produce a product easily and profitably. DFM Guidelines: 1. Minimize parts. 2. Design parts for different products. 3. Use modular design. 4. Avoid tools. 5. Simplify operations. DFM guidelines focus on two issues: Design Simplification means reducing the number of parts and features of the product whenever possible. A simpler product is easy to make, costs less, and gives us higher quality. Design Standardization refers to the use of common and interchangeable parts. By using interchangeable parts we can make a greater variety of products with less inventory and significantly lower cost and provide greater flexibility.