Leadership in the Product Development Process

Author(s):  
Hugh E. McLoone

Creativity can be viewed as a chaotic or unplanned activity. The product design process often may seem like chaos as well, but this is not inevitable. Designers and human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) professionals follow a clear design process with phases, levels, and methods for creation of successful new products. Research methods are offered at the right time during this process to generate new concepts and to evaluate designs. We work together to create innovative, valued, and successful products via a generative, iterative, evaluative process.

Author(s):  
Marco Rossoni ◽  
Giorgio Colombo ◽  
Luca Bergonzi

Current trends in product development process highlight the increasing adoption of digital data and virtual processes. Nowadays, a huge amount of product data are collected without a clear management strategy and, oftentimes, they dont even cover the whole product development process. A global and integrated planning about information needed to sustain product design process is not a trivial task and, usually, companies underrates this issue. From the perspective of virtualization of processes, and then their automation, the lack of structured knowledge is certainly awful. This paper aims at making a critical analysis how product data evolve throughout the product design or configuration process and how they impact the product development activities. Efficient digital product twin allows companies to virtualize processes and leverage their automation, but it is important to understand how the knowledge management should be carried out. Three case studies, directly experienced by the authors, have been investigated analyzing digital data and virtual tools that allow companies to automate the design process, each one bringing a peculiar perspective of the problem.


Author(s):  
Gregory M. Roach ◽  
Jordan J. Cox ◽  
Jared M. Young

A major challenge in industry today is to reduce the cost and cycle time in product development while maintaining enough flexibility to adapt to changing markets. Businesses are requiring more and more flexibility in order to produce custom goods at low cost. A new strategy called the Product Design Generator is presented to provide flexible product platforms through an automated design process where product variation is built into the product development process and is achieved through scalable and in some instances modular parametric models for a given product platform embodiment. A case study of web-based Product Design Generator is presented. The axial turbine disk Product Design Generator demonstrated cycle time reduction from 500 man hours to 15 minutes. This new product development strategy has demonstrated the potential to provide engineers the ability to study more potential design solutions, reduce the number of opportunities to introduce error in the product development process, and allows companies to apply a consistent design process across the organization.


2015 ◽  
Vol 740 ◽  
pp. 957-960
Author(s):  
Xiao Ling Yin ◽  
Bo Yang ◽  
Hai Tao Li

To take a wonderful understanding of design process, a modeling method based on colored hierarchical timed Petri nets and a model for a typical process of product design using this method are introduced. Then, aiming at some key issues, the model are simulated by CPN Tools and the results are shown in the paper according to which some convictive conclusions are drawn which indicates the method introduced is valid and reasonable.


2015 ◽  
Vol 786 ◽  
pp. 305-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohd Qadafie Ibrahim ◽  
Nurulhalim Hassim ◽  
Ahmad Anas Yusof ◽  
Siti Zulaikha Abdul Mutalib

Direct modelling is a new CAD technology that enables model geometry construction by pushing, pulling or twisting which emphasis to solve the constraint issues made by the current technology. Ideally it is more efficient and productive in accomplishing a part of product design process. This study is about comparing productivity and efficiency of both modelling by mean of counting mouse button clicks as representing speed for accomplishing the task. Parametric modelling is set as the benchmark. The review also taking into account several qualitative aspects during the process. Accordingly, direct modelling is proven better from the parametric modelling for this scenario.


Author(s):  
Andrea CAPRA ◽  
Ana BERGER ◽  
Daniela SZABLUK ◽  
Manuela OLIVEIRA

An accurate understanding of users' needs is essential for the development of innovative products. This article presents an exploratory method of user centered research in the context of the design process of technological products, conceived from the demands of a large information technology company. The method is oriented - but not restricted - to the initial stages of the product development process, and uses low-resolution prototypes and simulations of interactions, allowing users to imagine themselves in a future context through fictitious environments and scenarios in the ambit of ideation. The method is effective in identifying the requirements of the experience related to the product’s usage and allows rapid iteration on existing assumptions and greater exploration of design concepts that emerge throughout the investigation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1061-1062 ◽  
pp. 1233-1237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pâmela Teixeira Fernandes ◽  
Osíris Canciglieri ◽  
Ângelo Márcio Oliveira Sant’Anna

This paper presents the findings of research exploring how designers could to evaluate and insert sustainability requirements in product design during the initial stages of the product development process. It describes the process of development of the method for sustainability consumable goods based from a literature review and explores its application in the development of packaging for cosmetic. The results show that the use of the method may be a promising solution for sustainable projects, providing the insertion of the reasoning for the inclusion of product development oriented to sustainability as a complement to traditional project requirements that existing in the models of product development.


Author(s):  
Gritt Ahrens ◽  
Oliver Tegel

Abstract An approach to support the appropriate definition, formulation and presentation of requirements obeying the needs of the employees is being presented. Classifiying the needs for information of the employees according to some characteristics, a guideline for how to promote the information needed by them can be developed. The goal is to ensure that everyone involved in the process — even the subcontractor — has the right information available in the right form at the right time. Defining requirements lists, splitting them into partial requirements lists for each area of the company, each process phase or each team, and then formulating these requirements and presenting them in an adequate way is the proceeding strived for. The result will be implemented into an information infrastructure to support the product development process continuously.


Author(s):  
Aybüke Aurum ◽  
Oya Demirbilek

As we enter the third millennium, many organizations are forced to constantly pursue new strategies to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Examples include offering customers streams of new products and services, as well as continuously seeking to improve productivity, services and the effectiveness of product design, development and manufacturing processes. Consequently, new concepts, approaches and tools are emerging quickly as the globalization trend expands across the world. Product complexity, pressures to reduce production cycle time, the need for stakeholders’ contributions and multinational company as well as consumer requirements create the demand for sophisticated multi-designer collaborative virtual environments where product design can be shared and acted upon (Kunz, Christiansen, Cohen, Jin, & Levitt, 1998; Ragusa & Bochanek, 2001; Anderson, Esser & Interrante, 2003). Thus, researchers and practitioners recognize that collaboration is an essential aspect of contemporary, professional product design and development activities. The design process is collaborative by nature. Collaborative design fosters participation of stakeholders in any form during the design process. The design of a successful product is dependent on integrating information and experiences from a number of different knowledge domains. These domains include consumer (end-user) requirements, industrial designers’ professional design skills as well as manufacturers’ needs. This results in a product that performs at a functional as well as aesthetic level and that can be manufactured by the right process at the right price. End-user involvement is essential to product design, since products that do not achieve consumer satisfaction or meet consumer needs are doomed to fail (Schultz, 2001). Accurate understanding of user needs is an essential aspect in developing commercially successful products (Achilladelis, 1971). Hence, it is very important for industrial designers to gather the end-users’ needs and incorporate them into their designs. The involvement of manufacturers in the initial stages of the domestic product design process can lead to a dramatic reduction in a product’s development lifecycle time, also facilitating the coordination of the purchasing and engineering functions (Bochanek & Ragusa, 2001; Demirbilek, 2001). The increasing complexity of artifacts and the globalization of product development are changing research methodologies and techniques. A prime example of this includes the application of a virtual collaborative design environment (VCDE) for product design and manufacturing. This article focuses on the concept of virtual collaborative design. It describes a research effort to investigate cross-cultural collaboration in product development using online applications for domestic product design. The aim of this research is to investigate issues related to the virtual collaborative design (VCD) process, and to bring an understanding of stakeholder needs during the collaborative design process as well as to improve the relationships between end-users, designers and manufacturers. The article presents findings based on a survey study conducted with four different potential stakeholders: representatives of consumers, software designers, industrial designers and manufacturers.


Author(s):  
Asko Ellman ◽  
Petter Krus

Establishing product requirements for the customer is usually the first step in the product development process. Indeed, identifying and fulfilling customer requirements is the key for successful product development. However, satisfying all the customer requirements is not always possible. Therefore, the best design is the design that fulfils a set of the most important customer requirements. Due to this, design process needs to be agile and iterative. Design and its requirements need to be effectively iterated.


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