The document discusses the importance of product design for business success. It argues that product design should not be seen as a secondary concern, but rather as integral to achieving organizational goals. The author outlines four key steps in the product design process: analysis of customer needs and market research; synthesis of potential design ideas; simulation to test designs; and evaluation and decision making. Collaboration across departments from marketing to manufacturing is also emphasized to ensure designs can be successfully brought to market. When done well through a strategic process, the document concludes that product design can help companies gain competitive advantages.

1. By:
Ahmad M. Alkhathami
ETLS 504 Excellence in Operations
Instructor: Thomas Becker
Date: 11/17/2008

2. Abstract
Product design is considered to be a secondary factor of a company’s success by many
people. This paper represented how product design plays a main role for the company’s
achievement in the market. It showed how making a good product design brings all the
company’s management and units together to achieve a common goal, through four main
steps of building the product design, which are the analysis, synthesis, simulation, and
making the right decision. In fact, excellence in product design not only connects all the
company’s department, but also guides to the organization’s objectives.
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3. Introduction
No one can deny the huge impact of the products in human life. From the simple tools
that we use in our houses to the highly sophisticated spacecrafts that travel across space,
and from the simple kids’ toys to the very complex medical equipment that helps save
people’s life. The products have a direct effect not only on our daily work life but also on
our behavior and our social relationships. The computer, for instance, has changed the
process of the work in the organizations and reshaped our communication relationships
with others. In fact, all these products start as ideas. Then, they go throw many processes
of designing, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing to be able to reach by
customers. The first step of the product-making journey is the product design. Product
design is the process of creating the prototype of the product that will be manufactured.
Therefore, success in making a good product design means success in sales, since you are
designing what you are going to sell to make profit for your business. Starting from the
professional strategies, to the collaboration of the cross functional departments, to
making the right design specification, and ending up with the best decisions, the company
can make excellence in product design that leads to achievement of the organization’s
goals, and insures its survival in the competition market.
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4. The need for a good product design
With the rapid increasing of competition among industrial companies, the ability to
make good products become crucial. On the other hand, advanced technology makes the
products’ designs easy to be changed rapidly. Companies must keep up with these
changes if they want to survive and make profit. Many companies are applying product
development plans. Thomas J. Waston who was the chairman of the executive committee
at the IBM Corporation for many years said that good design was one of the main factors
for success of the IBM for the last years.1
In fact, good product design is not only the
reason to achieve the customers’ satisfaction, but also it reduces the costs of the process
and increases the quality by applying many kinds of techniques such as DFMA, DFM,
TQM, etc.
The design strategy
The first and the most important factor in achieving excellence in product design is the
management involvement. In fact, one of the product design problems is the management
lack of designing issues, it gives a lot of focus on the customers, processes, and sales
regardless that a good product design is the invisible power toward success in all other
factors2
. In fact, the management duty is to establish the strategy and the policy of the
product design process that leads to making the best product design that can share in
reducing the costs, increasing the quality, and saving time. Also, its duty is to insure that
the design department uses the internal and external resources in the best way,
1
Thomas F. Schutte. “ The Uneasy Coalition: Design in Corporate America”
2
Thomas F. Schutte. “ The Uneasy Coalition: Design in Corporate America”
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5. communicates efficiently with the other departments, gets the correct information at the
right time, and works as teams.3
Collaboration:
Product design is not a task that belongs only to the people who work in the design
department. It is a collaborative duty that seeks information and feedback from many
sources internal or external the organization. Some of the important departments that
must involve with the design department are:
1- Production Department
Once the product is designed, the manufacturing people start to build the production
plan to manufacture the product. However, the production has limited capability, not
every design can be manufactured with the existing machines and financial resources.
Therefore, the manufacturing people must cooperate with designers to come up with the
best product design by testing its manufacturability, sustainability, and serviceability4
.
Designers depend on the manufacturing engineers to get a lot of critical feedback, and
they work together to ensure the machines’ abilities to produce the designed product.
2- Marketing Department
One of the important sources is the marketing study. It provides the required
information about customers’ needs, the competitors’ products, and the market
expectancy. This information is key for the designers because the objective is to design
what the customers will buy. Thus, as much the information is accurate, as much the
3
Tony Wills. “ Getting the best from Product Design”
4
Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Manufacturing Insights. “ Design for Manufacturing and
Assembly”, DVD.
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6. design properties become specific. This is due to the fact that the product designers
regard the customers’ needs as a departure point of the design processes.
Design Methodology
Design methodology is the procedures of the product design. This section will explain
the essential structure of the designing, and the design processes that makes efficient
product design.
There are many methods of designing, yet this paper considered the way that is useful
to apply in the industrial companies that seek profit by selling their products. In these
kind of companies the designers start from the functions and end up with a prototype that
must be approved by many departments across the company.
Design methodology consists of four main steps: analysis, synthesis, simulation, and
evaluation and decision making. The importance of each steps and the role that plays in
the product design are shown below.5
No Yes
The block diagram of the design processes.
1- Analysis
Even though the analysis is the first step in the designing processes, it depends
on a previous step which is the market study. Marketing people are responsible
5
N. F. M. Roozenburg and J. Eekels. “Product Design: Fundamentals and Methods.”
6
Analysis
Decisio
n
Evaluation
Proposal
Simulation
Approved
the design
to be
produced

7. for collecting the information about the market situation, the customers’ needs,
and the competitors’ activities. This step is vital and it is the basis of the analysis.
After that, the designers start by analyzing the functions of the new product and
develop a clear statement of the requirements. They come up with a new design
specification which is the requirements the new product must have. Design
specification is like a road map that leads all participants to focus on the (wanted
design) not the (best design) because making the best design instead of the
targeted design is like solving a different problem rather than your problem. In
this step, the evaluation criteria are developed. For example, when a company X
wants to produce a new style of suitcase, designers with the other team members
may come up with specification like:
a) The suitcase is made of leather.
b) It has to be black.
c) The sales price is not more than $50.
How to make a design specification
The purpose of design specification is making the guidelines to accomplish all the
design’s objectives. In their book Production Design: Fundamentals and Methods
Roozenburg and Eekels show three ways of making a design specification:
a- procedure:
New product design is a problem- solution design. The problem is to try to
achieve all the new functions in the new design. Procedure is the way to adjust the
specification to make it more accurate with respect to the new design function.
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8. b- Checklist:
In checklist, the designers list all the objectives of the design; it includes three
groups of specifications. One refers to the stakeholders’ needs and expectations
such as the costs, the profit, the quality, etc. Those stakeholders might be the
company’s managers, suppliers, or customers. The second group of specification
is the aspects such as the size, the color, and the materials. The third group is the
lifecycle of the product which must give answers to questions like: how long is
the product expected to stay in the market?
c- Operational objectives:
The concept of this way is to discuss the objectives and come up with the
properties the product should have to meet these objectives.
2- synthesis
Synthesis is the method of creating ideas for the new design. In fact, creativity
and innovation are essential in generating ideas, in addition to the experience
background.
There are numerous ways of creating ideas such as brainstorming. Moreover,
the ideas can be devised from the customers or through benchmarking or both of
these ways.
The morphological method
In the morphological method, we build a matrix of all the parameters that need
any kind of redesigning and all the alternative solutions. Then, we analyze and
evaluate each solution (component) with regard to the objectives:
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9. 1- Formalize accurately the design problem to be solved, i.e. you want to
redesign or create a product to have higher quality in the market.
2- Identify the parameters that utilize the new product design. For example,
the size of the new product or the material that will be used.
3- Build a matrix that includes all the parameters and the ideas (components).
4- Evaluate and compare to get the best alternative that meets your design
objectives.
3- Simulation
Simulation comes after synthesis and before evaluation. This step is a type of
early test of the new designs and functions. Also, it simulates and expects the
customers’ reactions by testing the reliability and validity toward the design’s
functions and its properties. Furthermore, it is a good way for the management
and all people involved in the project to assess the proposals and give their
thoughts about them. Giving feedback at this stage of the design development is
very important. This feedback could come from management with regard to the
cost or the business strategy, the production department according to the
capabilities of the manufacturing, marketing people, or even from a random
sample of customers. The product design could be simulated by many ways such
as computer simulation, graphic simulation, material model, or even verbally.
After simulation, many actions are taken to make change in the design such as
eliminating some parts, combining others, or adding new features, and this
process may be repeated many times to optimize the outcomes.
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10. 4- Evaluation and Decision making
Evaluation and decision making is the last step of the design processes. By this
step all the data, objectives, design specification, and alternative solutions (prototypes)
are completed. And it is the decision makers’ task to determine the value and the worth of
each alternative with respect to the design specification and the product objectives. Then,
they come up with the best decision.
When decision makers have many alternatives, the need of evaluation criteria
becomes more necessary. Their decision will refer to the following factors:
1- The numbers of the available alternatives.
2- The properties of each alternative.
3- The quantitative measurement such as the cost and the life period, and the
qualitative measurement such as the simplicity of manipulating and making the
maintenance.
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11. Conclusion
The more effort a company is devoting to the product design strategy and process, and
the more money that is invested in the product design research and study, the more the
company gets benefits. Simply, if you make a good product, you have the guarantee of
success and making a profit. The product is the identity of the company in the market and
it is the mirror that represents the workers and the success of the company. Since many
companies may have the same processes and systems, yet which distinguishes company
X from company Y is its product’s features. The company starts with a powerful study of
the market and the customers’ needs. Then, it builds cross functional teams who analyze
and create the specifications of the new product. After that, the team comes up with good
ideas that give the best solutions for the design. Then, they make the prototypes and test
their values. Finally, they make the right decision by choosing the design that meets the
design’s objectives. At the end the company can proceed the other processes to approach
its goals with more confidence.
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12. Bibliography
- Roozenburg N. F. M. and Eekels J. Product Design: Fundamentals and Methods.
England: Wiley, 1995.
- Schutte, Thomas F. The Uneasy Coalition: Design in Corporate America. University of
Pennsylvania Press, Inc, 1975.
- Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Manufacturing Insights. “Design for
Manufacturing and Assembly”, 2005, DVD.
- Wills, Tony. “Getting the best from Product Design.” Wills Waston Associates.
Retrieved from the Internet November 14, 2008.
http://space.businessballs.com/willsandwatson/resources/Product%20design%20all
%20pages.pd
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