General Concepts of Product Development

[Basics Concepts] [Addicional Information]

Responsible:Prof. Henrique Rozenfeld; Daniel Capaldo Amaral
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Basic Concepts

Sources: Rozenfeld, H., 1997; Clark & Fujimoto, 1991; Clausing, 1993; Pugh, 1990, 1996.

Product Development Importance

It is not a new notion that developing products has became one of the key processes for competitiveness in manufacturing. The increase of competition, the fast technological changes, the decrease of product life cycle and the increase of demand from customers, all demand more agility, productivity and high quality from companies. However, reaching this performance, involves efficiency and effectiveness of the product development process.

One of the well-known factors of the product development process is that the degree of uncertainty in the beginning of the process is very high, decreasing over time. However, it is in the beginning that a great amount of constructive solutions is selected.

The decisions in the beginning of the development cycle are responsible for 85% of the cost of the final product. The modification cost increases along the development cycle, because for each change, a large number of the decisions already taken, can become invalidated. Therefore, it is a very hard work to manage the uncertainties involved in the beginning of the product development process. Mainly, because these decisions, that generate a great impact, need to be taken exactly in this phase (in the beginning) where a larger number of alternatives and uncertainty degree exists.

Moreover, these difficulties are increased by:
- the fact that this process is based on a cycle of "to project - to build - to test" that generates necessarily interactive activities;
- the activity being essentially multidisciplinary (strong cultural barriers can arise through integration);
- the existence of a large amount of tools, systems, methodologies, solutions, etc., developed by professionals and enterprises from different areas, which sometimes, do not have any interaction;
- the existence of several partial views of the product development process.

Partial views of the Product Development process

The managing of the product development process becomes difficult because of the existence of several partial views. In the teaching and research area, developing products is being treated in an isolated way, by different areas of specialised knowledge. Therefore, the engineers have a tendency of thinking about the product development as specific activities of calculations and tests. There are a lot of examples like: chemical engineers in terms of energy balance and equipment design, mechanical engineers in terms of calculus and necessary drawings for mechanical processes, etc. Other specialists include, among others: the designers, with their conceptual studies; the administrators, with their organisational and strategic problems, independent of the technological content; specialists in quality, with their specific tools.

When these views are transformed into practice, they can bring with them a lot of problems and inefficiencies. This happens because any product, independent of its technological hegemony, involves knowledge of different views. This integrated process depends on several linked factors from several knowledge areas to obtain an appropriate result. Moreover, each partial view brings its own language and values, which increases the difficulty to integrate the different professionals from different areas.

To resolve this situation the development of a holistic view is necessary, in other words, the construction of an integrated image of the product development process. The way adopted, to represent this image, by the Group of Integrated Engineering is through a reference model for product development process.

Study Approaches for Product Development

There are several approaches to analyse and study the product development process. They have origins in different areas of knowledge, highlighting different aspects of the process. Some of the most important are:

Some studies from Harvard & MIT: at the end of the 80’s and the beginning of the 90’s, important research projects, related with the lean production and management of the product development process, were developed by people from Harvard and MIT. These firsts works, only analytical, became classics and are commonly refereed to in the product development literature review (CLARK & FUJIMOTO, 1991 and WOMACK, JONES & ROSS, 1994). They generated many applied concepts in this area. The concepts generated by the research have a wider application mark than a specific approach. Nowadays, these concepts are utilised by a great deal of people who study and work with product development. These concepts have their own importance in the product development area. They also contributed to the foundation of an approach to manage this process, which is presented in the books: CLARK and WHEELWRIGHT, 1993a and b. In this approach, the authors divide the product development process into three stages. They are:Development Strategy, which presents a structure that help plans and manage the projects that are carried out; Specific Project Management, which presents topics related with management, leadership, interaction types among activities, and other subjects related with a specific project; Learning, this presents different ways to guarantee the improvement of the process and the organisational learning gained from the experience with the project.

Stuart Pugh:The approach proposed by PUGH (1990 and 1996) is influenced by the practical experience he gained from years of working as a designer and project manager, in several industries. His main concern is about the incomplete views in each specific technological sector. He tried to get an overview of the project activity. To reach this aim, he put great emphasis on education and developed a model known as Total Design. This model has a group of six stages, which are all interactive and applicable to any kind of project (independent of the technological discipline involved). Each stage is represented by a cylinder involving a specific group of knowledge composed by several partial technological views.

Don Clausing: The author’s work is influenced strongly by the work of Pugh and Taguchi’s. Clausing created an approach called Total Quality Development, based on his own experience and the concepts of both authors cited above, with whom he worked with. In this approach, there is a focus on the follow techniques: QFD, Taguchi method, Pugh Matrix and the concepts of product development teams management. His main contribution is to show the integration between QFD and the Taguchi method. The product development process is divided into phases, these are: Concept, where he focuses on the QFD methodology; Design, which is divided into subsystem, design, and parts design; Preparation / manufacturing, which is divided into system verification, ready for manufacturing and pilot production.

Prasad: This author proposes a sophisticated approach to Concurrent Engineering that includes several factors in a structure, quite independent of the product development process phases. He divides the Concurrent Engineering into two wheels called Product and Process Organisation (Product and Process Organisation Wheel - PPO) and the Integrated Product Development (Integrated Product Development Wheel - IPD). Both have in their centre, the description of four support elements for this methodology, which are models, methods, metrics and measures. The two wheels also have identical intermediate rings that represent the teams or the organisational structure that drives the actions in the Concurrent Engineering process. The first wheel, PPO, includes the factors that determine the degree of complexity of the product development management and the organisational factors. The second wheel, IPD, defines, in a flexible way, the integration of the product development process.

APQP of QS 9000: The manual of planning and control of the developed product quality, that belongs to the group of QS 9000 norms, has a structure that could be useful for structuring and managing the product development process. In spite of it not being specifically developed for this purpose, it summarises a group of concerns, techniques and a detailed model that could be useful for interventions in this process. In parallel, there is another proposal that is being developed by NUMA, an approach from Integrated Engineering Group. The main goal of this approach is to promote the holistic view of product development process.

Product Development Process Definitions

"Product development process is the resulting process when market information is transformed into information and necessary sources to manufacture a product with the aim of commercialising it" Clark & Fujimoto (1991).

“Product development process is the necessary systematic activity from the identification of the market/customer needs until the product sale, an activity that includes product, processes, people and organisation". Pugh (1990, p.5).

"Product development process is a business process. The process that involves, from the initial idea and market information until the final approval of the product, the transmission of information about the project and product, for all functional areas of the company" (Integrated Engineering Group).

Product Development Process Characterisation

One way of characterising the product development process is through the following dimensions, which are present in the reference model developed by the Engineering Integrated Group for the FIM:

Activities/phases: there are many forms of classifying the phases and activities of the product development process. In the Engineering Integrated Group approach and in the reference model, seven phases are identified: Product Conception, Product Conceptualisation, Product and Process Design, Product Verification, Process Verification and teaching the company. The reference model presents the follow activities in each of these stages;
resources: it is composed of all concepts/philosophies, methods/techniques and tools/systems that can be applied in the product development process.
organisation: it is related, not only to the organisational structure, person responsible and conductor of the activities of product development, but also, to some elements such as culture, professional qualification, communication among the people, etc., and linked to the aspects of work organisation.
information:a dimension that represents the existent information flow in this process: the data, its structure and the format of them (reports, records, computer screens, etc.).

Additional information - last verification 08/08/2001 (back to the top) (back to the top)

References

BOB JERRARD (Editor), MYFANWY TRUEMAN (Editor), ROGER NEPORT (Editor), ROGER NEWPORT (Editor) (1999) Managing New Product Innovation: Taylor & Francis

BROWN, S. L.; EISENHARDT, K. M. (1995). Product development: past research, present findings, and future directions. Academy of Management Review, v. 20, n.2, p.343-378, Apr. (t:803).

CLARK, K. B.; FUJIMOTO, T. (1991). Product development performance: strategy, organization and management in the world auto industry. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. (It's available in the FEA library - USP).

CLARK, K. B.; WHEELWRIGHT, S. C. (1993). Managing new product and process development: text and cases. New York: Free Press. (It's available in the EESC library - USP).

CLAUSING, D. (1993). Total quality development: a step-by-step guide to world-class concurrent engineering. New York, AsmePress. (t:322).

CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN (1999) Innovation and the General Manager: McGraw Hill College Div

FRANK R., Jr. BACON, THOMAS W., Jr. BUTLER (1998) Achieving Planned Innovation: A Proven System for Creating Successful New Products and Services: Simon & Schuster.

JACK A. RIBBVENS, JACK RIBBENS (2000) Concurrent Engineering for New Product Development: John Wiley & Sons

JONH M. USHER (Editor), UPTAL ROY, H. R. PARSAEI (Editor), PARSAEI HAMID (Editor) (1998) Integrated Product and Process Development: Methods, Tools, and Technologies: John Wiley & Sons

KARL T. ULRICH, STEVEN D. EPPINGER (1999) Product Design and Development: McGraw Hill College Div

KITCHO, C. (1999) High Tech Product Launch: Pele Publications.

MARC H. MEYER, MARK H. MEYER, ALVIN LEHNERD (Contributor) (1997) The Power of Product Platforms: Building Value and Cost Leadership, Free Press

MILTON D., Jr. ROSENAU (1999) Successful Product Development: Speeding from Opportunity to Profit, John Wiley & Sons

PAUL TROTT (1998) Innovation Management and New Product Development: Financial Times Management

PRASAD, B (1996). Concurrent engineering fundamentals: integrated product and process organization. v.I. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Intenational Series. (t:321)

PRASAD, B (1997). Concurrent engineering fundamentals: integrated product and process organization. v. IINew Jersey: Prentice Hall Intenational Series. (It's available in the EESC library - USP) (t:326)

PRESTON G. SMITH, DONALD G. REINERTSEN (1997) Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools, 2nd Edition: John Wiley & Sons

PUGH, S. (1991). Total design: integrated methods for successful product engineering. Addison Wesley. (It's available in the EP library - USP).

PUGH, S. (1996). Creating innovative products using total design: the living legacy of Stuart Pugh. Addinson Wesley.

ROZENFELD, H. (1997). Desenvolvimento de Produtos em CIM (white-paper)

TOSHIHIRO NISHIGUCHI (Editor) Managing Product Development : Oxford Univ Press

Related Sites

Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) - it is an international association that includes researches and professionals on product development process management. Its differential is that it is quite multidisciplinary, composed by professionals of the administration area, marketing, engineering and others. In this site, it is possible to get up-dates about events, courses and to register to this association. Another important point is that this association edits The Journal of Product Innovation Management magazine, which is one of the most important journals in this area because its focus is only in the product development area, maintaining a multidisciplinary characteristic. This journal also brings the summaries of some papers about product development that are published in other magazines. In this site, it is also possible to access the indexes of the backdated editions of this journal.

American Society for Mechanical Engineering (ASME) - American association brings in its site, publications and events in the product development area. In spite of the emphasis in the mechanical design area, this association has a division about project management.

Centre for Innovation in Product Development (MIT) – Research centre of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that develops advanced research on the product development process. One of the researchers of this centre is Prof. Don Clausing.

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