A Framework For Product Development
A Framework For Product Development
A Framework For Product Development
Abstract
Since the introduction of Integrated Product development in 1985 [1], industry has widely
been using this model to understand and articulate their design, business and production
activities. Recently, however, the picture has started to alter, as the nature of industry’s
business has had to adapt to a much more complex world and in many cases, Integrated
Product Development is no longer a sufficient way of describing industry’s product
development activity. This paper uses the model of Integrated Product Development as a
start-point to exploring the changes that industry has been undergoing over the fifteen years
since it was introduced and attempts to make pointers in the direction of a new framework for
product development, which should guide industry in the future.
The key research challenges that this paper identifies include: developing a framework that
identifies and supports a multi-aspect approach to product development; understanding the
strategic conditions that affect product development; developing a coherent approach to
product quality based on product-life thinking; addressing environmental needs in a proactive
manner through innovation techniques; and understanding both organisational and technical
knowledge-management for improved product development.
1 Background
The product development research area has evolved from the area of engineering design,
based upon the recognition that important aspects such as need, market, business, innovation
and technology management. These fuse together to form a field of competencies with its
own professionalism and need for clarification through research.
In the 1980’s, the concept of Integrated Product Development (IPD) was created by
Andreasen and Hein [1]. IPD has acted as a guide to industry ever since, highlighting the
need to concurrently address the product, production and market situations when developing
products, and providing a structured framework into which product design should fit.
Figure 1: IPD model (Andreasen & Hein, 1985 [1])
However, fifteen years after the articulation of IPD, industry has developed and moved on, so
that IPD no longer fits ideally to many industries’ actual product development activities.
Causes for these changes include:
product quality developing to very high levels and becoming an accepted norm rather than
a competitive lever;
differences in expectation, interpretation and perception of quality between the customer
and the company (and furthermore internally within the company) are causing a number
of gaps, leading to low competitive edge;
environmental concerns being translated into a range of product design efforts, and re-
shaping the direction of industry development;
products becoming technologically more complex and combining technologies that were
previously left as discrete solutions (i.e. mechatronic products);
the introduction of the concept of product families, where many products share the same
basic architecture and certain base-components, but have an array of end-variants, to
provide a continued product range;
the further development of the product family concept to the activity of modular design,
where the product is not only capable of being a family member, but also up-gradeable,
easily repairable, and interchangeable;
a significant shift in the way that products can be defined, due to the fact that they
increasingly come as a package of hardware, software and services – industry is
increasingly regarding the physical artefact (the former definition of a product) as carrier
to the growing range of services that they provide;
globalisation and uncertainty induces companies to create new product concepts and
markets;
the need for companies to find another means of competition – time, cost, quality,
flexibility, (and to a certain extent, environment) have all been key competitive
dimensions for industry over the past twenty years, all of which satisfy the customer’s
basic needs/desires. Industry is seeking the next competitive dimension.
These issues have driven industry to search for a new framework for product development
that can cope with these many aspects.
This paper identifies a challenge to create a vision for a new product development framework,
which both represents and guides industry in its systematic approach to creating products.
2 Why A New Framework For Product Development?
2.1 The need for structure
On evaluating IPD, we can see that its purpose was to represent a recognition of co-ordinated
strategies towards product development, and to present a paradigm which combined design
with the roles of marketing and production, focusing on needs and business. In essence IPD
was a definition of professional behaviour in product development.
Industry has since moved beyond this model, due to the need to perform and compete in
rapidly changing markets, with ever increasingly complex technology. These constant
changes have given rise to a number of issues in product development, which should be
addressed, in order to understand and articulate them in a new framework.
2.2 Current issues in product development
Together with the Department of Control & Engineering Design at DTU, five Danish
companies have established, and are now supporting, a research programme named P*
(Product Development Programme). Initiated in 1998, this programme has led to deep insight
into the needs and interests of Danish industry. Based upon emerging theory and scoping
studies carried out in the P* companies, a number of issues have been identified, which are
not currently covered by integrating models of product development. The following eight
themes crystallise the areas of significant importance in product development, which industry
is seeking insight into:
life cycle oriented design and the universal virtues;
product structuring (e.g. platforms, modular engineering);
integration of technical disciplines (e.g. mechatronics);
environmental issues;
product quality;
the role of IT in product development processes;
human-machine interaction; and
innovation.
the product
Use
the product
Figure 2 - Simplified life cycle model showing only a few life phases
Figure 2 shows a simplified model of the product life cycle with only a few life phases
depicted. The ‘use’ life phase is clearly the most significant of these and the most complex to
understand. In the use life phase, the product is an active element of a technical process,
which creates a transformation of some kind. Hubka’s theory of technical systems [2]
provides a theory base for describing the relationships between the transformation process, the
technical system, the human operator and the surrounding environment. In other life phases
(e.g. ‘assembly’), the product is the subject of the technical process and is acted upon by
another technical system (e.g. an assembly system). The product development process itself
may also be modelled using this theory – here the transformation process is of data and
information into a design description of the product. The two process streams will meet when
the product is launched into series production.
In order to create a model of the product life cycle, it is necessary to determine each of the
discrete ‘meetings’, which will occur between the product and the stakeholders. Clearly some
meetings occur only once in the life cycle (e.g. those associated with the original manufacture
of the product), whereas others occur many times (e.g. those in the ‘use’ life phase). During a
meeting, the product will interact with other (complementary) technical systems, users and
stakeholders. The effectiveness of the activity in each meeting can be measured using the so-
called ‘seven universal virtues’ (see Figure 3), i.e. quality, time, cost, efficiency, flexibility,
risk and environment (after Olesen, [3]). Since the product participates in each meeting, its
functionality and properties have consequences in all of these measures. As a result, the seven
universal virtues may be utilised to measure the effectiveness of each phase of the product life
cycle, to compare alternative design solutions, or to clarify product development objectives.
The principles of life cycle oriented design are evident in all product design activities.
Current design practices demonstrate that there is a high level of conscious design effort
seeking to improve the quality of products, not just in the ‘use’ life phase, but also in other
life phases (e.g. manufacture, service and disposal). ‘Design for X’ tools have been devised
to provide designers with procedures, data, information, and working principles, which
enables them to address life cycle issues in the early stages of the design process. However,
in practice, the implementation of a life cycle oriented design approach is fraught with
difficulties. From our observations of design practice, we can typically see that:
identification of the life cycle phases and ‘meetings’ is often incomplete;
identification of the stakeholders is also incomplete;
the commitment to thinking with a life cycle orientation is weak;
designers have a poor awareness of how products actually behave in real life; and
optimisation of the design for specific life phases may be at the expense of ‘whole life’
benefits.
Consequently, the product design process is hindered by:
incomplete, multi-stakeholder criteria in the specification of goals;
inappropriate communication of specifications;
design flaws with ugly trade-offs, blind spots, and unforeseen life cycle dispositions;
no supporting mindset common to the design team;
an inability to overview the life cycle needs and simultaneously evaluate solutions in
all life phases (this seems particularly pertinent with computer-based design);
designing as if there was no prior experience to draw upon; and
weak argumentation for alternative solutions.
If life cycle oriented design is to be successfully implemented in product development, then
we require a working approach that can support the product definition, creative, synthesis,
evaluation and process control aspects of product design.
3.2 Product structuring (e.g. platforms, modular engineering)
Andreasen’s theory of domains shows the relationship between the processes that occur in the
product life cycle and the elements of the product, which carry the required functionality and
properties [4]. The original domain theory, which identified four domains, has been modified
to three domains[5]: transformation, organs, and parts (Figure 3).
TS Hu
Transformation Behaviours Q Quality
domain C Cost
Output T Time
Transformation Universal Virtues F Flexibility
E Efficiency
R Risk
Organ Function (effects) En Environment
domain Organ Properties
Parts Task
domain Part Properties
Product
Product Platforms
Platforms
Platform
Platform
Project Project
Project
Project
Product
Product Projects
Projects
expectation Q
product life supporting qualities
qualities q:
obligatory qualities
• producability
• assemblability
technical quality Q*
• serviceability
• robustness
• product life robustness
• reliability
Figure 8 - Multi-boards depict the product life cycle allowing thorough evaluation of proposals
Creating a good working environment for the design team is a crucial role of the war-room.
Display boards will provide the focal point of the working area (Figure 8). The multi-board
concept is a proposal for supporting life cycle oriented design, which we believe, overcomes
many of the weaknesses observed with current design practice. The product development
team uses the boards to document the product life cycle, with each meeting of the product and
associated stakeholder considered separately. All kinds of graphical and textual information
(e.g. illustrations, notes, sketches, diagrams, photographs, printed text, data sheets), are
displayed. The boards are not a sophisticated information technology medium; if anything,
they are the reverse! They remain accessible throughout the product development project
enabling anyone in the product development team to view them, modify them, or add further
information to them. The use of the multi-board favours using scenarios to describe life cycle
events. The scenarios provide an effective means of describing life cycle events and the
meetings, which occur between the product and a stakeholder. The resulting model of the
product life cycle will enable the team to fully represent multiple-stakeholder criteria and
ensure design effort considers all needs.
One role of the war-room is to develop a life cycle oriented mindset amongst all members of
the product development team. Using the boards to document the product life cycle will
enable the team to share a common understanding of who all the stakeholders are, what their
needs are, and what functions, qualities and properties the product must have. Where several
potential concepts emerge, the multi-board display allows for the comparison and evaluation
of the alternative concepts against all life cycle needs, and appropriate choices can be made
for more detailed design development in the machine-room.
During the product development process, the war-room is used for strategic activities:
specifying goals; controlling unification of requirements between stakeholders; seeing the
consequences of one life phase requirement upon another (dispositions); identifying the
supporting product life systems; and agreeing upon the ‘guiding stars’ for innovative product
concepts, synthesis and review. The war-room is an environment that will foster dialogue and
creativity amongst the team. Product design proposals can be properly adjusted to integrate
fully with the project goals, synthesis can be co-ordinated on a continual basis throughout the
project, decisions can be made with a full awareness of the life cycle consequences, and
emerging results documented by modification of the multi-boards (Figure 8).
The routine, procedural and well-defined tasks of product development occur in the machine-
room. After cutting the cake, these tasks can be distributed through the extended product
enterprise (i.e. into the supply chain). Computer-based activities and processes are at the
heart of the machine-room. Many product development processes are already carried out
using these means, and the trend is that more will follow. The technology will save time
during development, enhance the number of prototype alternatives that can be assessed, whilst
cutting development costs. Consequently, product developers will gain more time and
resources for the strategic activities of the war-room. The results emerging from the machine-
room will be continually fed to the war-room, where their consequences will be evaluated and
controlled.
This war-room/machine-room vision provides a flexible approach to product development,
maintaining overview throughout the project, whilst adopting the best of current practices.
References
T. C. McAloone A. J. Robotham
Associate Research Professor Associate Professor
Dept. of Control & Engineering Design Dept. of Control & Engineering Design
Technical University of Denmark Technical University of Denmark
Building 358 Building 358
2800 Lyngby 2800 Lyngby
Denmark Denmark
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