The document discusses best practices for product design and development. It outlines key aspects of the process including identifying customer needs, establishing target specifications, concept generation, concept selection, concept testing, and setting final specifications. It also describes an evaluation framework that allows companies to compare their performance to industry benchmarks and best practices. The framework is used to develop an improvement plan by assessing a company's current situation, identifying gaps compared to best practices, and determining priorities based on business strategy and best practices.

1. PRODUCT
DESIGNING
AND
DEVELOPMENT

3. BEST PRACTICE SOURCES
Company
Visits
Workshops Technology
& Meetings Vendors
BMP
Conferences
Program
BEST
PRACTICES
Literature Corporate
Review Handbooks
Panel of Telephone
Experts Discussions
Consulting
Experience

4. IMPROVING PRODUCT DESIGNING
How well are we Requirements Empowerment
definition
doing? What improvements Solids
are needed? Where do we Product modeling
planning Integrated
start? Should we product
benchmark? teams Design
Early re-use
involvement
Product data
MCAD management
Design for
manufacturability Resource Top-down
management design
Configuration
management Early supplier
involvement QFD
Project
CAE planning Analysis &
simulation
The Product Development Best Practices and Assessment
software and methodology provide an objective way for
identifying opportunities and planning improvements

5. IDENTIFYING CUSTOMER NEEDS
 Important to know their needs and effectively
communicate them to the development team.
 Output results in:
 Customer needs statements
 Organized in a hierarchical order
 Each need is assigned a rating of importance

6. ESTABLISHING TARGET SPECIFICATIONS
 Specifications define what the product is
supposed to do.
 Serves as a translation of customer needs
into technical terms.
 Target specs are set early and refined as the
team zeros in on a choice of product
concept.

7. CONCEPT GENERATION
 The goal is to thoroughly explore the space of
product concepts that may address the customer
needs.
 Consists of:
 External searches
 Creative problem solving within the team
 Results in maybe 10 to 20 concepts, each with a sketch
and brief description

8. CONCEPT SELECTION
 A process where each concept is evaluated
to identify the most promising concepts.
 Requires several iterations and may cause
additional concept generation and
refinement.

9. CONCEPT TESTING
 One or more concepts are tested to verify the
customer needs have been met.
 To also assess the market potential of the product.
 I.D. any shortcomings before any further
development.
 Poor customer feedback could result in terminating
a project.

10. SETTING FINAL SPECIFICATIONS
 Previous target specifications are revisited
AFTER a concept has been selected and
tested.
 The project team needs to commit to specific
values of metrics for the final specifications.
 Technical modeling done and they look at
trade-offs between cost and performance.

13. EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
Database to compare company performance against
Company
Performance
Industry
Performance Best
Database Practice
0 Performance Evaluation 10

25. DEVELOPING AN IMPROVEMENT CONCEPT
CURRENT BEST PRACTICES
SITUATION GAP
IMPROVEMENT
PLAN What’s possible
Product Business
Development Strategy
Assessment (Strategic
What the What’s Levers)
weaknesses important
are
1. Assess current 3. Develop a 2. Determine
situation plan to close priorities based on
gap strategy & Best
Practices

34. S