Product/Service Development Process
Learning Outcome
At the end of the lecture, you should be
able to:
–Identify possible idea of a
product/service that can meet societal
need.
–Know the procedure of transforming
idea to reality for customers’ use.
Product/Service Development
Process
The idea of developing a physical product or
valuable service that would be useful to
customers would have to pass through some
standard stages of development before the
product or service is ready for a customer.
• The stages are stated as follows:
Market Survey
Market survey is customer-needs information
gathering process intended to discover consumers’
taste and the essential requirements of a
product/service. The following are some of the data
usually collected in a market survey:
– Market trends of analogous products
– Potential customer environment (temperature range,
pressure range, humidity, corrosion, noise, hazards,
vibration, etc)
– Customers’ attitudes
– Buying habits (frequency, brand loyalty, volume, etc)
– Aesthetics appeal (general appearance, visual
requirements, audio requirements, etc)
– Market share of the product
•
Market Survey Contd
– Packaging requirements
– Specific Quality characteristics
– Ergonomic requirements
Product/Service Design Specifications
• At this stage experts formulate the specifications of the product.
• The outcome of the market survey is the input data for the PDS
• Some of the items included in PDS are:
• Performance requirements
• Operating environment
• Quantity
• Size and weight
• Aesthetics (appearance and finish)
• Safety
• Market Constraints
• Legal implications
• Disposal requirements
Product/Service Design
• This includes conceptual design (selection of
the form every component and the entire
product/ service will take)
• preliminary design (synthesize chosen
components into a functional product)
• prototyping and the detailed design (working
drawing with all specifications including
tolerances)
Process Design
• This is mainly the selection of feasible
processe(s), materials and the associated
primary types of machines.
Operations Design
• The following are determined in operations
design:
• Required skills
• Work content in a product/service
• Activities, their sequence and the duration per
activity
• Number of personnel per skill
• Number of machines per process
Operations Design Contd
• Management structure and motivation system
• Material handling system
• Tooling requirements
Facilities Design (Plant location and
Layout)
• Work space requirement
• Material handling devices
• Flow pattern of materials, products and people
• Overall shape and size of factory
• Storage requirements
• Relative location of each facility, materials,
finished goods, stores, welfare facilities and
personal offices
Cost Estimation
• When all the tooling, machines, equipment,
production time, personnel and organization
structure are now known; The cost of the
product/service can now be estimated
Procurement and Installation
• Facilities are purchased and installed
• Materials are purchased and personnel hired
• Physical work system are ready for production
of goods and/ services
Operations for production
• Full scale of combined activities of workers and
machines commences to realise the production
of goods and/ services
• Products/services processing take place
• Production planning and control; the people,
materials, machines, information and energy
resources , material handling and storage as well
as quality improvement are judiciously integrated
and managed to actualise desirable outputs
Distribution /shipment
• Outputs are distributed or shipped to the
customer
Iterations in Product Development
Process
• The designers have to critically examine the
goods/service; if it is not satisfactory, the
process is reviewed for improvements
Concurrent Engineering
• Production of a new product/service may
involve many serial stages of activities before
getting ready for the customer
• Depending on the complexity of the product,
it may take up to one year for large-scale
production
• An attempt to reduce the span of time to get a
product ready for market by combining team
of experts, CAD and CAM such that most of
the stages are accomplished simultaneously is
known as Concurrent Engineering
What is Concurrent Engineering?
• Concurrent engineering is a method of
designing and developing engineering products
in which different departments simultaneously
work on the different stages of engineering
product development.
• It involves the parallelization of tasks (i.e.,
performing tasks simultaneously rather than
sequentially) and the integration of multiple
disciplines from the early stages of product
design.
Key Concepts of Concurrent Engineering
• Multidisciplinary Teamwork:
– Involves cross-functional teams from design, manufacturing,
marketing, and other departments.
– Encourages open communication and collaboration.
• Parallel Processing:
– Overlaps phases of product development to reduce time-to-
market.
– Helps in identifying design and manufacturing issues early.
• Customer-Centric Design:
– Incorporates customer feedback early in the process.
– Enhances product quality and relevance to user needs.
• Integrated Product Development Tools:
– Utilizes tools like CAD, CAM, CAE, and PLM systems.
– Enables real-time updates and collaboration.
• Reduced Development Time and Costs:
– CE shortens development cycles and avoids costly redesigns.
– Promotes efficient resource utilization.
Benefits of Concurrent Engineering
• Faster Time to Market
• Improved Product Quality
• Reduced Costs
• Enhanced Team Collaboration
• Greater Customer Satisfaction
Challenges of Concurrent Engineering
• Complex to manage
• It relies on everyone working together; hence
communication is critical
• Room for mistakes is small as it impacts all the
departments or disciplines involved
