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PRODUCT DESIGN
Product design is cross-functional, knowledge-intensive work that has become increasingly important in today's fast-paced, globally
competitive environment. It is a key strategic activity in many firms because new products contribute significantly to sales revenue. When
firms are able to develop distinctive products, they have opportunities to command premium pricing. Product design is a critical factor in
organizational success because it sets the characteristics, features, and performance of the service or good that consumers demand.
The objective of product design is to create a good or service with excellent functional utility and sales appeal at an acceptable cost and
within a reasonable time. The product should be produced using high-quality, low-cost materials and methods. It should be produced on
equipment that is or will be available when production begins. The resulting product should be competitive with or better than similar
products on the market in terms of quality, appearance, performance, service life, and price.
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MASS CUSTOMIZATION
Mass customization is the low-cost, high-quality, large volume delivery of individually customized products. It is the ability to quickly
design and produce customized products on a large scale at a cost comparable to non-customized products. Customization, cost
effectiveness is the ability to produce highly differentiated products without increasing costs, significantly. Consumers expect to receive
customized products at close to mass-production prices. Customization volume effectiveness is the ability to increase product variety
without diminishing production volume. As markets become more and more segmented and aggregate demand remains constant or
increases, firms must continue to design and produce high volumes across the same fixed asset base. Customization responsiveness is
the ability to reduce the time required to deliver customized products and to reorganize design and production processes quickly in
response to customer requests. It would be counter-productive to pursue mass customization if a customized product takes too long to
produce. Speed in product design and production is an indispensable criterion for evaluating an organization's mass customization
capability.
an automobile is recycled by the year 2010. This requirement has a major impact on product design. The most obvious effect is to
change the notion that a consumer is the final owner for a product. With this approach, the product returns to the manufacturer to be
recycled and the recycling process should begin in product design. Vehicles should be designed so they can be disassembled and
recycled easily. The designers should avoid exotic materials that are difficulty to recycle. For example, parts that have plastic and metal
fused together should not be used in applications where they are difficult to separate. The designers should determine which parts will
be designed to be refurbished and reused, and which will be designed to be discarded, broken down, and recycled. All this should be
done without adding costs or reducing product quality.
PROTOTYPING
Engineering and operations combine to develop models of products called prototypes. These may be working models, models reduced
in scale, or mock-ups of the products. Where traditional prototype development often takes weeks or months, the technology for rapid
prototyping has become available. Some companies are using the same technology that creates virtual reality to develop threedimensional prototypes. Other firms employ lasers to make prototypes by solidifying plastic in only a few minutes; this process can
produce prototypes with complex shapes. Prototyping should increase customer satisfaction and improve design stability, product
effectiveness, and the predictability of final product cost and performance.
COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN
Currently, business managers and engineers perceive computer-aided design (CAD) as a tool to assist engineers in designing goods.
CAD uses computer technology and a graphic display to represent physical shapes in the same way that engineering drawings have in
the past. It is used in the metalworking industry to display component parts, to illustrate size and shape, to show possible relationships to
other parts, and to indicate component deformation under specified loads. After the design has been completed, the engineer can
examine many different views or sections of the part and finally send it to a plotter to prepare drawings. This capability greatly reduces
engineering time and avoids routine mistakes made in analysis and drawing. It significantly increases productivity and reduces design
time, which allows faster delivery.
Applications of CAD systems are not limited to producing goods. While it's true that services do not have physical dimensions, the
equipment and facilities used to produce services do. For example, the service stalls in an automotive center or rooms in an emergency
medical center have physical characteristics that can be represented by the interactive graphics capabilities of a CAD system.
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PRODUCT DESIGN
AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Organizations consider product design a critical activity to the production of environmentally friendly products. Organizations increasingly
recognize that being good corporate citizens increases sales. Fast-food restaurants have begun recycling programs and redesigned
packaging materials and systems in response to customer concerns. In other cases, being a good corporate citizen and protecting a
company's renewable resources go well together; there are win-win opportunities where an organization can actually design products
and processes that cut costs and increase profits by recapturing pollutants and reducing solid waste.
OVERVIEW OF PRODUCT
DESIGN PROCESS
Product design time can be reduced by using a team approach and the early involvement of key participants including marketing,
research and development, engineering, operations, and suppliers. Early involvement is an approach to managing people and
processes. It involves an upstream investment in time that facilitates the identification and solution of down-stream problems that would
otherwise increase product design and production costs, decrease quality, and delay product introduction.
Time-based competitors are discovering that reducing product design time improves the productivity of product design teams. To
reduce time, firms are reorganizing product design from an "over-the-wall" process to a team-based concurrent process. Over-the-wall
means to proceed sequentially with the limited exchange of information and ideas. When this approach is used, problems are often
discovered late because late-stage participants are excluded from decisions made early in the process. As a result, poor decisions are
often made.
Product design is a labor-intensive process that requires the contribution of highly trained specialists. By using teams of specialists,
communications are enhanced, wait time between decisions is reduced, and productivity is improved. Participants in this team-based
process make better decisions faster because they are building a shared knowledge base that enhances learning and eases decisionmaking. By sharing development activities, design decisions that involve interdependencies between functional specialists can be made
more quickly and more effectively. This reorganized process creates a timely response to customer needs, a more cost-effective
product design process, and higher-quality products at an affordable price.
There are several reasons why early involvement and concurrent activities bring about these improvements. First, product design shifts
from sequential, with feedback loops that occur whenever a problem is encountered, to concurrent, where problems are recognized early
and resolved. The ability to overlap activities reduces product design time. Second, when a team of functional specialists works
concurrently on product design, the participants learn from each other and their knowledge base expands. People are better able to
anticipate conflicts and can more easily arrive at solutions. As a result, the time it takes to complete an activity should decline. Third,
fewer changes later in the process results in faster and less expensive product design. When problems are discovered late, they take
more time and money to solve.
Product design requires the expertise and decision-making skills of all parts of the organization. Marketing, engineering, operations,
finance, accounting, and information systems all have important roles. Marketing's role is to evaluate consumer needs, determine
potential impact of competitive pressure, and measure the external environment. Engineering's role is to shape the product through
design, determine the process by which the product will be made, and consider the interface between the product and the people.
Operations' role is to ensure that the product can be produced in full-scale production. Finance's role is to develop plans for raising the
capital to support the product in full-scale production and to assist in the evaluation of the product's profit potential. Accounting and
information systems provide access to information for decision making. Cross-functional teamwork and knowledge sharing are thus
keys to success.
SEE ALSO: Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing ; Pricing Policy and Strategy ; Product Life Cycle and Industry Life Cycle ;
Product-Process Matrix ; Quality and Total Quality Management ; Reverse Supply Chain Logistics ; Supply Chain Management
Mark Vonderembse
FURTHER READING:
Corswant, F, and C. Tunlv. "Coordinating Customers and Proactive Suppliers: A Case Study of Supplier Collaboration in Product
Development." Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 19, no. 3-4 (2002): 249261.
Droge, C., J. Jayaram, and S. Vickery. "The Ability to Minimize the Timing of New Product Development and Introduction: An
Examination of Antecedent Factors in the North American Automobile Supplier Industry." Journal of Product Innovation Management
17 (2000): 2440.
Gerwin, D., and N.J. Barrowman. "An Evaluation of Research on Integrated Product Development." Management Science 48, no. 7
(2002): 938953.
Hong, S.K., and M.J. Schniederjans. "Balancing Concurrent Engineering Environmental Factors for Improved Product Development
Performance." International Journal of Production Research 38, no. 8 (2000): 17791800.
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Koufteros, X.A., M. Vonderembse, and J. Jayaram. "Internal and External Integration for Product Development: The Contingency Effects
of Uncertainty, Equivocality, and Platform Strategy." Decisions Sciences 36, no. 1 (2005): 977133.
Koufteros, X.A., M. Vonderembse, and W. Doll. "Concurrent Engineering and Its Consequences." Journal of Operations Management
19 (2001): 97115.
Krishnan, V., and K.T. Ulrich. "Product Development Decisions: A Review of the Literature." Management Science 47, no. 1 (2001): 1
21.
McDermott, C.M., and G.C. O'Connor. "Managing Radical Innovation: An Overview of Emergent Strategy Issues." Journal of Product
Innovation Management 19, no. 6 (2002): 424438.
Meyer, M.H., and A.P. Lehnerd. The Power of Product Platforms. New York: The Free Press.
Reinertsen, D.G. Managing the Design Factory. New York: The Free Press.
Song, X. M., and M. Montoya-Weiss. "The Effect of Perceived Technological Uncertainty on Japanese New Product Development."
Academy of Management Journal 44 (2001): 6180.
Tu, Q., M. Vonderembse, and T.S. Ragu-Nathan. "The Impact of Time-Based Manufacturing Practices on Mass Customization and
Value to Customer." Journal of Operations Management 19 (2001): 201217.
Vonderembse, M.A., and G.P. White. Operations Management: Concepts, Methods, and Strategies. Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons,
2004.
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Product-Process Matrix
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