Product Design

• The essence of an organization is the goods and services it

offers
– Every aspect of the organization is structured around them

• Product and service design – or redesign should be closely

tied to an organization’s strategy
 Product Design---Key Questions

• Is there a demand for it?

– Market size
– Demand profile
• Can we do it?
– Manufacturability - the capability of an organization to produce an
item at an acceptable profit
• What level of quality is appropriate?
– Customer expectations
– Competitors quality
• Does it make sense from an economic standpoint?
– Liability issues, sustainability issues, costs and profits
 Reason for Design or Re-design

• The driving forces for product and service design or redesign

are market opportunities or threats:
– Economic
– Social and demographic
– Political
– Legal
– Competitive
– Cost or availability
– Technological
 Product Design: Idea Generation
• Supply-chain based
– Ideas can come from anywhere in the supply chain:
• Customers, suppliers, distributors, employees, maintenance and repair
personnel

• Competitor based
– By studying how a competitor operates and its products and services, many
useful ideas can be generated
– Reverse engineering
• Dismantling and inspecting a competitor’s product to discover product
improvements

• Research based
– Applied research
• Objective of achieving commercial applications

– Development
• Converts the results of applied research into useful commercial applications
 Legal Considerations

Product liability
• The responsibility a manufacturer has for any injuries or
damages caused by as faulty product
• Some of the associated costs
– Legal and insurance costs
– Settlement costs
– Costly product recalls
– Reputation effects
 Ethical Considerations

• Designers are often under pressure to

– Speed up the design process
– Cut costs
• Trade-off decisions
– Release the product and risk damage to your reputation
– Work out the bugs and forego revenue
 Sustainability

• Using resources in ways that do not harm ecological systems

• Key aspects of designing for sustainability
– Cradle-to-grave assessment (Life-Cycle assessment)
• The assessment of the environmental impact of a product or service
throughout its useful life
• Global warming, pollution, smog formation, solid waste generation
– End-of-life programs
• Reduction of costs and materials used
• Re-using parts of returned products
• Recycling the materials
 Reduce

• Value analysis
– Examination of the function of parts and materials in an effort to
reduce the cost and/or improve the performance of a product
– Common questions used in value analysis
• Is the item necessary; does it have value; could it be eliminated?
• Are there alternative sources for the item?
• Could another material, part, or service be used instead?
• Can two or more parts be combined?
• Can specifications be less stringent to save time or money?
• Do suppliers/providers have suggestions for improvements?
• Can packaging be improved or made less costly?
 Re-Use

• Refurbishing/Remanufacturing of used products by

replacing worn-out or defective modules/components
• Can be performed by the original manufacturer or another
company
• Reasons to remanufacture:
• Remanufactured products can be sold for about 50% of the cost of
a new product
• The process requires mostly unskilled and semi-skilled workers
• In the global market, lawmakers are increasingly requiring
manufacturers to take back used products
Design for disassembly (DFD)
• Designing a product in such a way that used product can be easily
taken apart
 Recycle

– Recovering materials for future use

• Applies to manufactured parts
• Also applies to materials used during production
– Why recycle?
• Cost savings
• Environmental concerns
• Environmental regulations
– Companies doing business in the EU must show that a
specified proportion of their products are recyclable

Design for recycling (DFR)

• Product design that takes into account the ability to disassemble a

used product to recover the recyclable parts
 Product Life-Cycle

Sales
Introduction Growth Maturity Stability

Decline

Time
 Production Design---Standardization

• Extent to which there is an absence of variety in a product,

service, or process
• Products are made in large quantities of identical items
• Every customer or item processed receives essentially the
same service
 Production Design---Mass Customization

• A strategy of producing basically standardized goods or

services, but incorporating some degree of customization in
the final product or service
• Techniques
o Delayed differentiation
o Modular design
 Delayed Differentiation

• The process of producing, but not quite completing, a product

or service until customer preferences are known
• Postponement strategy
 Modular Design

• A form of standardization in which component parts are

grouped into modules that are easily replaced or
interchanged
 Functional Design---Reliability

• The ability of a product, part, or system to perform its

intended function under a prescribed set of conditions
– Failure
• Situation in which a product, part, or system does not perform as
intended
– Reliabilities are always specified with respect to normal
operating conditions---the set of conditions under which
an item’s reliability is specified
– Reliability is expressed as probability
– Probability that the product or system will function when
activated
– Probability that the product or system will function for a given
length of time
 Reliability---Resources in Series
 A machine has two buttons. In order for the machine to be
switched on, both buttons must work. One button has a
probability of working of 0.95, and the second button has a
probability of working of 0.90. Probability that the machine
will be switched on is?

Button 1 Button 2
0.95 0.90
 Reliability---Resources in Parallel

• Backup of resources
• A restaurant located in area that has frequent power outages
has a generator to run its refrigeration equipment in case of a
power failure. The local power company has a reliability of
0.95, and the generator has a reliability of 0.90. The
probability that the restaurant will have power is?

Generator
0.90

Power Co.
0.95
 Reliability: For Specified Length of Time

Warranty of products
• MTBF---exponential distribution
• 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 = 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑛𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑇 =
−𝑇ൗ
𝑒 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹
 Reliability: For Specified Length of Time

• By means of extensive testing, a manufacturer has

determined that its Vacuum Cleaner models have an expected
life that is exponential with a mean of 4 years. Find the
probability that that one of the cleaners will have a life that
ends
1. After the initial 4 years of service
2. Before 4 years of service are completed
3. Not before 6 years of service
 Availability

• Fraction of time a piece of equipment is expected to be

operational

𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠

• 𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 =
𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠+𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟

Q) Availability of a copier which operates for an average of 200

hours between repairs and having 2 hours of repair time is?
 Role of Technology

• Computer aided design (CAD)

• Computer aided engineering (CAE)
• Computer aided manufacturing (CAM)
• Robotics and artificial intelligence
• Internet of Things (IoT)
 Phases in Product Design and Development

1. Feasibility analysis
2. Product specification
3. Process specification
4. Prototype development
5. Design review
6. Market test
7. Product introduction
8. Follow-up evaluation