ACE 701

PHILOSOPHY OF ENGINEERING DESIGN: TECHNIQUES AND

ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS AND EVALUATION

Engr. Dr. Ndudim Ononiwu

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING | UNN
Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Product Development .................................................................................. 3
1.2. Difference between discrete and process manufacturing.......................................... 3
1.3. Characteristics of a successful product development ................................................ 4
1.4. Product development team ........................................................................................ 5
1.5. The Challenges of Product Development.................................................................... 6
2. The Product Development Process. .................................................................................... 8
2.1. Phases of product development .................................................................................. 9
2.1.1. Adapting the Generic development process to specific product types................ 1
2.1.2. Product Development Process Flows ................................................................... 2
2.2. Product Development Organizations........................................................................... 3
2.2.1. Choosing an Organizational Structure ...................................................................... 4
3. Introduction to Industrial design ........................................................................................ 7
3.1. The need for industrial design ..................................................................................... 7
3.2. The industrial design process ...................................................................................... 8
3.3. Accessing the quality of industrial design .................................................................. 10
4. Design for the Environment ............................................................................................. 12
4.1. Product lifecycle ........................................................................................................ 13
4.2. Environmental impacts of products .......................................................................... 13
4.3. Process for Design for environment ......................................................................... 14
 1. Introduction to Product Development
The concept of product/service delivery is highly dependent on a firm to identify customers'
needs and create products that meet those needs at low cost. Meeting this need is a
combination of marketing. design and manufacturing. All these functions are found within
the concept of product development. Product development can be thought of as a set of
activities beginning with the perception of a market opportunity and ending in the
production, sale and delivery of a product. A typical sequence of product development is
depicted in figure 1-1. The concept of product development in this study will be applied to
engineered, discrete and physical products. These terms involve products that are produced
through engineering processes and are created as distinct units. Discrete manufacturing can
be characterized by unit production, where units can be produced with high complexity and
low volume.

Figure 1-1 Product development process

1.2. Difference between discrete and process manufacturing

Process manufacturing relies on creating formulas or recipes to produce a product whereas
discrete manufacturing assembles parts in a prescribed manner to produce a distinct item.
While discrete manufacturing creates products that are differentiated by individual units,
process manufacturing does not. A summary of the differences between discrete and process
manufacturing is summarised in figure 1-2.
 Figure 1-2 Summary of the differences between discrete and process manufacturing

1.3. Characteristics of a successful product development

 Product quality: How good is the product resulting from the development effort? Does
it satisfy customer needs? Is it robust and reliable? Product quality is ultimately
reflected in market share and the price that customers are willing to pay.
 Product cost: What is the manufacturing cost of the product? This cost includes
spending on capital equipment and tooling as well as the incremental cost of
producing each unit of the product. Product cost determines how much profit accrues
to the firm for a particular sales volume and a particular sales price.
 Development time: How quickly did the team complete the product development
effort? Development time determines how responsive the firm can be to competitive
forces and technological developments, as well as how quickly the firm receives
economic returns from the team’s efforts.
 Development cost: How much did the firm have to spend to develop the product?
Development cost is usually a significant fraction of the investment required to
achieve profits.
 Development capability: Are the team and the firm better able to develop future
products as a result of their experience with a product development project?
Development capability is an asset the firm can use to develop products more
effectively and economically.

The deployment of an economically successfully developed product is characterised by high

performance along these 5 dimensions.
 1.4. Product development team
As already established, product development is an interdisciplinary activity. The functions are
almost always central to a product development project.

 Marketing: The marketing function mediates the interactions between the firm and
its customers. Marketing often facilitates the identification of product opportunities,
the definition of market segments, and the identification of customer needs.
Marketing also typically arranges for communication between the firm and its
customers, sets target prices, and oversees the launch and promotion of the product.
 Design: The design function plays the lead role in defining the physical form of the
product to best meet customer needs. In this context, the design function includes
engineering design (mechanical, electrical, software, etc.) and industrial design
(aesthetics, ergonomics, user interfaces).
 Manufacturing: The manufacturing function is primarily responsible for designing,
operating, and/or coordinating the production system to produce the product.
Broadly defined, the manufacturing function also often includes purchasing,
distribution, and installation. This collection of activities is sometimes called the
supply chain.

Beyond these broad functional categories, the specific composition of a development team
depends on the particular characteristics of the product. Every fundamental product
development project must have these core functions.

Products are usually developed through a collection of individuals that forms a project team.
The team usually has a team leader who heads the team and ensures that the process is run
effectively. The project team consists of core members and extended members. The core
members of a project development team are comprised of engineering/manufacturing,
marketing, product development, project development, innovation, operations and product
marketing. A key feature of the core members of the product development team is that they
are usually comprised of small members with vast knowledge and experience in specialised
roles/functions. This is a requirement to ensure critical and long terms decisions are made.
The core members are required to set up extended members of the team that are responsible
for carrying out the processes required to actualize the goals set out by the core members.
The extended members of the product development team are responsible for making tactical
and operational decisions. In most product development settings, all members of the team
that work under the core members are regarded as extended team members. Figure 1-3
shows a typical product development organogram where the core and extended members
are specified.
 Figure 1-3 Members of a typical product development team

1.5. The Challenges of Product Development

Developing a new product is typically a strenuous and time-consuming process. Few
companies are highly successful more than half the time. These odds present a significant
challenge for a product development team. Some of the characteristics that make product
development challenging are:

 Trade-offs: An aeroplane can be made lighter, but this action will probably increase
manufacturing costs. One of the most difficult aspects of product development is
recognizing, understanding, and managing such trade-offs in a way that maximizes the
success of the product.
 Dynamics: Technologies improve, customer preferences evolve, competitors
introduce new products, and the macroeconomic environment shifts. Decision-
making in an environment of constant change is a formidable task.
 Details: The choice between using screws or snap-fits on the enclosure of a computer
can have economic implications of millions of dollars. Developing a product of even
modest complexity may require thousands of such decisions.
 Time pressure: Any one of these difficulties would be easily manageable by itself given
plenty of time, but product development decisions must usually be made quickly and
without complete information.
 Economics: Developing, producing, and marketing a new product requires a large
investment. To earn a reasonable return on this investment, the resulting product
must be both appealing to customers and relatively inexpensive to produce. For many
 people, product development is interesting precisely because it is challenging. For
others, several intrinsic attributes also contribute to its appeal.
 Creation: The product development process begins with an idea and ends with the
production of a physical artefact. When viewed both in its entirety and at the level of
individual activities, the product development process is intensely creative.
Satisfaction of societal and individual needs: All products are aimed at satisfying needs
of some kind. Individuals interested in developing new products can almost always
find institutional settings in which they can develop products satisfying what they
consider to be important needs.
 Team diversity: Successful development requires many different skills and talents. As
a result, development teams involve people with a wide range of different training,
experience, perspectives, and personalities.
 Team spirit: Product development teams are often highly motivated, cooperative
groups. The team members may be collocated so they can focus their collective energy
on creating the product. This situation can result in lasting camaraderie among team
members.
2. The Product Development Process.
A process refers to a sequence of steps that work to transform a set of inputs into desired
outputs. In the context of product development, the process is the sequence of activities that
an enterprise employs to conceive, design and commercialize a product. As seen in the
introduction to the concept of product development, not all products follow the same
product development process.

A product development process needs to be well defined for;

 Quality assurance: A development process specifies the phases a development

project will pass through and the checkpoints along the way. When these phases and
checkpoints are chosen wisely, following the development process is one way of
assuring the quality of the resulting product.
 Coordination: A clearly articulated development process acts as a master plan that
defines the roles of each of the players on the development team. This plan informs
the members of the team when their contributions will be needed and with whom
they will need to exchange information and materials.
 Planning: A development process includes milestones corresponding to the
completion of each phase. The timing of these milestones anchors the schedule of the
overall development project.
 Management: A development process is a benchmark for assessing the performance
of an ongoing development effort. By comparing the actual events to the established
process, a manager can identify possible problem areas.
 Improvement: The careful documentation and ongoing review of an organization’s
development process and its results may help to identify opportunities for
improvement.

The product development process can be thought of in 3 ways;

 The initial creation of a wide set of alternative product concepts, identification and
selection of available alternatives. The alternatives will be narrowed down until a
design can be selected that can be reliably and repeatably produced by the production
system.
 The product development process can also be thought of as an information-processing
system where the process begins with inputs such as corporate objectives, strategic
opportunities, available technologies, product platforms, and production systems. In
this context, the process comes to an end when all the information required to
support production and sales has been identified.
 A product development process can be seen as a risk management system. At the
initial stage of the process, perceived risks are identified and prioritized. As the
process progresses, risks are reduced as the key uncertainties are eliminated and the
functions of the product are validated. When the process is completed, the team
 should have substantial confidence that the product will work correctly and be well
received by the market.

2.1. Phases of product development

For the generic product development process, there are 6 phases as indicated in table 2-1.
The planning stage begins the process. The output of the planning stage defines the
subsequent phases starting with the concept development.
Table 2-1 Phases in the product development process

Planning Concept System-level design Detail design Testing and Production Ramp-
Development refinement up
Marketing  Articulate  Collect  Develop a  Develop  Develop  Place
market customer plan for marketing promotion early
opportunitie needs. product plan and launch productio
s.  Identify lead options materials. n with
 Define users. and  Facilitate key
market  Identify extended field testing. customer
segments. competitive product s.
products. family.
Design  Consider  Investigate  Develop  Define part  Test overall  Evaluate
product the feasibility product geometry. performance early
platform and of product architectur  Choose , reliability productio
architecture concepts. e. materials and n output.
 Assess new  Develop  Define  Assign durability.
technologies industrial major tolerances.  Obtain
design subsystems  Complete regulatory
concepts. and industrial approvals.
 Build and interfaces. design  Assess
test  Refine documentatio environment
experimental industrial n. al impacts.
prototypes. design.  Implement
 Preliminary design
component changes.
s design.
Manufacturin  Identify  Estimate  Identify  Define piece-  Facilitate  Begin full
g production manufacturi suppliers part supplier operation
constraints ng costs for key production ramp-up. and
 Set supply  Assess component processes.  Refine productio
chain production s  Design tooling fabrication n system.
strategy. feasibility  Perform  Define quality and
make-buy assurance. assembly
analysis. processes.
 Define the  Train
final workforce.
assembly  Refine
scheme quality
assurance
processes.
 Planning: This phase precedes project approval and as such is referred to as 'phase
zero'. This phase begins with target market identification. In addition, this phase
considers technology development assessment and set market objectives. The output
of phase zero includes the target market, business goals, and constraints.
 Concept development: The needs of the identified target market are identified in this
stage. Within the phase, alternative concepts are identified or generated and
evaluated. The evaluation of the alternatives precedes the further development and
testing of the best.
 System-level design: This is the definition of the product architecture, preliminary
design of key components, categorising the product into subsystems and components,
and the allocation of the detailed design responsibility to internal and external
sources. The initial plans for the production system are defined in this phase. The
phase output includes the geometric layout of the product, a functional specification
of the product's subsystem and a preliminary process flow diagram for the final
assembly process.
 Detail design: The detailed design phase includes the complete specification of the
geometry, materials, and tolerances of all of the unique parts in the product and the
identification of all of the standard parts to be purchased from suppliers. A process
plan is established and tooling is designed for each part to be fabricated within the
production system. The output of this phase is the control documentation for the
product—the drawings or computer files describing the geometry of each part and its
production tooling, the specifications of the purchased parts, and the process plans
for the fabrication and assembly of the product. Three critical issues that are best
considered throughout the product development process, but are finalized in the
detailed design phase, are materials selection, production cost, and robust
performance.
 Testing and refinement: In the product development process, this stage embodies the
feasibility/alpha and beta prototypes. The feasibility prototype intends to prove that
the concept can be made using the proposed technology and that the required
components are readily available. It is sometimes referred to as the proof-of-concept
model. The beta prototype is a close representation of the desired product. Also
within this stage is the pilot production that is used to test and verify the production
process. Here, the design has been finalised and the pilot units are used to show that
the production process is efficient.
 Production ramp-up: In the production ramp-up phase, the product is made using the
intended production system. The purpose of the ramp-up is to train the workforce and
to work out any remaining problems in the production processes. Products produced
during production ramp-up are sometimes supplied to preferred customers and are
carefully evaluated to identify any remaining flaws. The transition from production
 ramp-up to ongoing production is usually gradual. At some point in this transition, the
product is launched and becomes available for widespread distribution. A postlaunch
project review may occur shortly after the launch. This review includes an assessment
of the project from both commercial and technical perspectives and is intended to
identify ways to improve the development process for future projects.

2.1.1. Adapting the Generic development process to specific product types

 Technology-push products: In developing technology-push products, the firm begins
with a new proprietary technology and looks for an appropriate market in which to
apply this technology (that is, the technology “pushes” development). For technology-
push products, the process begins with the planning phase, in which a developed
technology based on R&D is matched with a market opportunity. Once a suitable
market has been identified, the rest of the generic product development process can
be followed.
 Platform products: This category of products is built around already existing
technologies. The basic difference between these categories of products and
technology-push products is that for the latter, the technology is developed from
scratch and a market is identified for the deployment of this technology.
 Customized products: Customized products are slight variations of standard
configurations and are typically developed in response to a specific order by a
customer. The development of customized products consists primarily of setting
values of design variables such as physical dimensions and materials. Custom product
development is the process of developing engineer-to-order products. Custom
product developments should be cost-effective, can integrate with existing systems,
and include accessible maintenance and support options. Companies that deal in
customized products require a highly detailed product development process involving
a well-defined sequence of steps with a structured flow of information. For
customized products, the generic process is augmented with a detailed description of
the specific information processing activities required within each of the phases. Such
may consist of hundreds of carefully defined activities and may be highly automated.
The process of development includes process requirement definition, prototype
development, prototype production, and final product delivery.
 High-risk products: These are those that entail unusually large uncertainties related
to the technology or market so that there is substantial technical or market risk. The
product development process addresses many types of risk. These include technical
risk (Will the product function properly?), market risk (Will customers like what the
team develops?), and budget and schedule risk (Can the team complete the project
on time and within budget?).
  Quick-build products: These are products that are developed through a rapid process
of design-build multiple iterations. Teams can take advantage of rapid iteration to
achieve a more flexible and responsive product development process, sometimes
called a spiral product development process. Following concept development in this
process, the system-level design phase entails the decomposition of the product into
high-, medium-, and low-priority features. This is followed by several cycles of design,
build, integration, and test activities, beginning with the highest-priority items. This
process takes advantage of the fast-prototyping cycle by using the result of each cycle
to learn how to modify the priorities for the next cycle. Customers may even be
involved in the testing process after one or more cycles. When time or budget runs
out, usually all of the high- and medium-priority features have been incorporated into
the evolving product, and the low-priority features may be omitted until the next
product generation.
 Complex Systems: Larger-scale products such as automobiles and aeroplanes are
complex systems comprising many interacting subsystems and components. When
developing complex systems, modifications to the generic product development
process address several system-level issues. The concept development phase
considers the architecture of the entire system, and multiple architectures may be
considered as competing concepts for the overall system. The system-level design
phase becomes critical. During this phase, the system is decomposed into subsystems
and these further into many components. Teams are assigned to develop each
component. Additional teams are assigned the special challenge of integrating
components into the subsystems and these into the overall system.

2.1.2. Product Development Process Flows

The product development process generally follows a structured flow of activity and
information flow. This allows us to draw process flow diagrams illustrating the process, as
shown in figure 2-1. The generic process flow diagram (a) depicts the process used to develop
market-pull, technology-push, platform, process-intensive, customized, and high-risk
products. Each product development phase (or stage) is followed by a review (or gate) to
confirm that the phase is completed and to determine whether the project proceeds. Quick-
build products enable a spiral product development process (b) whereby the detailed design,
prototyping, and test activities are repeated several times. The process flow diagram for the
development of complex systems (c) shows the decomposition into parallel stages of work on
the many subsystems and components. Once the product development process has been
established within an organization, a process flow diagram is used to explain the process to
everyone on the team.
 Figure 2-1 Process flow diagrams for the 3 product development processes

2.2. Product Development Organizations

It is important for firms involved in product development endeavours to organize the process
for effective implementation. Product development organizations are formed by establishing
links between the involved individuals. These links perform the following relationships.

 Reporting relationships: Reporting relationships give rise to the classic notion of

supervisor and subordinate. These are the formal links most frequently shown on an
organization chart.
 Financial arrangements: Individuals are linked by being part of the same financial
entity, such as a business unit or department within a firm.
 Physical layout: Links are created between individuals when they share the same
office, floor, building, or site. These links are often informal, arising from spontaneous
encounters while at work.
In product development organizations, 3 categories exist depending on the required
organization link. The functional organization occurs between individuals who perform
similar functions while the project organization link is between individuals working within the
same project irrespectively of the assigned roles. The matrix organization structure is a hybrid
between the functional and project organization. Typically, each individual has two
supervisors, one a project manager and one a functional manager. The practical reality is that
either the project or the function tends to have stronger links. This is because, for example,
both functional and project managers cannot independently assign their shared staff, they
cannot independently evaluate and determine the salaries of their subordinates, and both
functional and project organizations cannot easily be grouped physically. As a result, either
the functional or the project organization tends to dominate. 2 variants of the matrix
organization exist. These variations are heavy-duty project organization and lightweight
organization. For the former, project organization are the stronger links while the latter has
weaker project links but relatively stronger functional links. The heavyweight project manager
has complete budget authority, is heavily involved in the performance evaluation of the team
members, and makes most of the major resource allocation decisions. Although each
participant in a project also belongs to a functional organization, the functional managers
have relatively little authority and control. A heavyweight project team in various industries
may be called an integrated product team (IPT), a design-build team (DBT), or simply a
product development team (PDT). Each of these terms emphasizes the cross-functional
nature of these teams. In this scheme, the project manager is more of a coordinator and
administrator. The lightweight project manager updates schedules, arrange meetings and
facilitates coordination, but the manager has no real authority and control in the project
organization. The functional managers are responsible for budgets, hiring and firing, and
performance evaluation. Figure 2-1 illustrates the functional and project organizations, along
with the heavyweight and lightweight variants of the matrix organization.

Figure 2-2: Organization structures

2.2.1. Choosing an Organizational Structure

The most appropriate choice of an organizational structure depends on which organizational
performance factors are most critical to success. Functional organizations tend to breed
specialization and deep expertise in the functional areas. Project organizations tend to enable
rapid and effective coordination among diverse functions. Matrix organizations, being
hybrids, have the potential to exhibit some of each of these characteristics. The following
questions help guide the choice of organizational structure:

 How important is cross-functional integration? Functional organizations may exhibit

difficulty in coordinating project decisions that span the functional areas. Project
organizations tend to enable strong cross-functional integration because of the
organizational links of the team members across the functions.
 Can individuals from each function be fully utilized for most of the duration of a
project? For example, a project may require only a portion of an industrial designer’s
time for a fraction of the duration of a project. To use industrial design resources
efficiently, the firm may choose to organize the industrial designers functionally, so
that several projects can draw on the industrial design resource in exactly the amount
needed for a particular project.
 How important is product development speed? Project organizations tend to allow
for conflicts to be resolved quickly and for individuals from different functions to
coordinate their activities efficiently. Relatively little time is spent transferring
information, assigning responsibilities, and coordinating tasks. For this reason, project
organizations are usually faster than functional organizations in developing innovative
products. For example, consumer electronics manufacturers almost always organize
their product development teams according to the project. This allows the teams to
develop new products within the extremely short periods required by the fast-paced
electronics market. The characteristics of the different organisational structures are
summarised in table 2-2.
Table 2-2 Characteristics of different organizational structures
3. Introduction to Industrial design
In recent times, product development has moved beyond the core functionality. This is
because the core functionality of a product is not always enough for its commercial success.
To this effect, product development incorporates the services of industrial designers. These
industrial designers are tasked with the aspect of a product that directly relates to the user's
experience. The user experience includes the product’s appeal (what the product looks like)
and functional interfaces (how the product is used). Industrial designers simply put
responsible for providing avenues for the satisfaction of customer needs and differentiating
their products from those of their competition.

Industrial design according to the Industrial Designers Society of America is the professional
service of creating and developing concepts and specializations that optimize the function,
value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both the user and
manufacturer. The industrial designer is responsible for actualizing five critical goals as
regards the development of a product. These goals are in terms of:

 Utility: The human interfaces of the product should be easy to use, intuitive and safe.
 Appearance: All aspects of the product should be attractive and pleasing to the end
user.
 Ease of maintenance: The products should be designed to communicate how they can
be maintained and repaired. The process of maintenance and repair should be easy
enough for the end user to understand.
 Cost: The features and form of the product have a high effect on the cost of tooling
which invariably affects the entire production cost.
 Communication: Product designs should communicate the corporate design,
philosophy and mission through the visual qualities of the products.

3.1. The need for industrial design

The importance of the industrial design of a product can be thought of in terms of aesthetics
(how the product looks) and ergonomics (the ease with which the product can be used).

In accessing aesthetic needs, certain questions are important such as;

 Does the product need to look different from the completion?

 Will the aesthetics of the product motivate the team? In several cases, the asthenic
of a product is almost as important to the product management team as it is to the
end user. This is because in some cases, the attractiveness of a product can be a source
of pride and motivation to the team which could boost morale and result in the overall
product's success.
 How important is the customer's perception of the product? A customer’s perception
of a product is in part based on its aesthetic appeal. An attractive product may be
associated with high fashion and image and will likely create a strong sense of pride
 among its owners. This may similarly be true for a product that looks and feels rugged
or conservative. When such characteristics are important, industrial design will play a
critical role in determining the product’s ultimate success.

For the ergonomics aspect of the importance of industrial design, important questions
highlighted below are important to ensure the success of the product development process.

 How important is the ease of use? The ease of use of a product is extremely important
as it is a critical factor that could define its success or failure in the market. Ease of use
is more challenging if the product has multiple features and/or modes of operation
that may confuse or frustrate the user. When ease of use is an important criterion,
industrial designers will need to ensure that the features of the product effectively
communicate their function.
 How important is the ease of maintenance? The ease of routine or corrective
maintenance of a product is an important criterion that affects its market reception.
The ease of maintenance can also affect the overall maintenance cost of the said
product by the end user.
 How many user interactions are required for the product's functions? In general, the
rule of thumb in industrial design is that the more interactions users have with a
product, the more important the industrial design considerations will be.
 What are the identified safety issues? All products have safety considerations. For
some products, safety considerations might be more challenging than other products
when certain factors such as the intended end user and working environments are
considered.

3.2. The industrial design process

In the process of incorporating industrial design into a product, the industrial designers could
be internal. This is usually the case for big manufacturing firms. In other cases, the process of
industrial design of a product could be outsourced. Regardless, the process to be followed
generally remains the same. A typical industrial design process comprises 6 phases are
illustrated in figure 3-1.
 Investigation of
customers needs

Coordination with
Engineering,
Manufacturing, Conceptualization
and External
Vendors
Industrial
design
process
Control drawings Preliminary
or Models refinement

Further
Refinement and
final concept
selection

Figure 3-1 The industrial design process

1. Investigation of customer needs

In the process of product development, the identification of the customers’ needs is
an important phase that usually begins the process. This identified need is eventually
studied during the inception of the industrial design process. The industrial designer
needs to research the customer's needs to gain a deeper understanding of the
possible interactions between the user and the product.

2. Conceptualization
Once the customer needs and constraints are understood, the industrial designers
help the team conceptualize the product. During the concept generation, stage
engineers naturally focus their attention on finding solutions to the technical
subfunctions of the product. At this time, industrial designers concentrate on creating
the product’s form and user interfaces. Industrial designers make simple sketches,
known as thumbnail sketches, of each concept. These sketches are a fast and
inexpensive medium for expressing ideas and evaluating possibilities. The proposed
concepts may then be matched and combined with the technical solutions under
exploration. Concepts are grouped and evaluated by the team according to the
customer needs, technical feasibility, cost, and manufacturing considerations.
 3. Preliminary refinement
In this phase, models are fabricated based on the most acceptable and in certain cases
concepts that show the most promise. Soft models are usually produced at full scale
to evaluate the concept. These models allow the development team to express and
visualise the intended product.

4. Further Refinement and final concept selection

In this phase, the accepted changes or improvements already made to the soft models
developed in the previous phase are converted to information-intensive drawings
called rendering. These renderings show the details of the design and often depict the
product in use. Drawn in two or three dimensions, they convey a great deal of
information about the product. Renderings are often used for colour studies and for
testing customers’ reception of the proposed product’s features and functionality. The
conclusion of the refinement phase is the creation of hard models. These hard models
usually based on the rendering are non-functional replicas close to the final design
with a very realistic look and feel. For many types of products, hard models are
fabricated to have the intended size, density, weight distribution, surface finish, and
colour of the desired product. Hard models can then be used by industrial designers
and engineers to further refine the final concept specifications. Furthermore, these
models can also be used to gain additional customer feedback in focus groups, to
advertise and promote the product at trade shows, and to sell the concept to senior
management within an organization.

5. Control drawings or Models

Industrial designers complete their development process by making control drawings
or control models of the final concept. Control drawings or models document
functionality, features, sizes, colours, surface finishes, and key dimensions. Although
they are not detailed part drawings (known as engineering drawings), they can be used
to fabricate final design models and other prototypes. Typically, these drawings or
models are given to the engineering team for the detailed design of the parts.

6. Coordination with Engineering, Manufacturing, and External Vendors

The industrial design process must work in tandem with the engineering and
manufacturing personnel throughout the subsequent product development process.

3.3. Accessing the quality of industrial design

Assessing the quality of the industrial design for a finished product is an inherently subjective
task. However, we can qualitatively determine whether the industrial design process has
accomplished its goals by considering each aspect of the product that is influenced by ID.
Below are five categories for evaluating a product.
1. Quality of the user interface: This category investigates the ease with which the
product is to be used. The quality of the interface is related to the product's
appearance, feel and modes of interaction.
2. Emotional appeal: This is a rating of the overall consumer appeal of the product. The
appeal is achieved in part through appearance, feel, sound, and smell depending on
the product.
3. Ability to maintain and repair the product: This is a rating of the ease of product
maintenance and repair. Maintenance and repair should be considered along with the
other user interactions.
4. Appropriate use of resources: This is a rating of how well resources were used in
satisfying the customer's needs. Resources typically refer to the monetary
expenditures on industrial design. A poorly designed product, one with unnecessary
features, or a product made from an exotic material will affect tooling, manufacturing
processes, assembly processes, and the like. This category asks whether these
investments were well spent.
5. Product Differentiation: This category rates the consistency and uniqueness of the
corporate identity. This product differentiation predominately is a function of
appearance.
4. Design for the Environment
To consider the environmental impact of the product that has been selected to cater for an
identified need, there is a need to evaluate the effect of the product development processes
and end-user utilization on the environment. This process is commonly referred to as design
for environment (DFE). Design for environment includes environmental considerations in the
product development process. This tool provided product developers with a practical method
to minimize the environmental impacts of the product development process to foster
environmental sustainability.

Environmental impacts of a product may include energy consumption, natural resource

depletion, liquid discharges, gaseous emissions, and solid waste generation. These impacts
fall into two broad categories, energy and materials and both represent critical
environmental problems that need to be solved. For most products, addressing the energy
problem means developing products that use less energy and that use renewable energy.
During the early stages of the product development process, deliberate decisions about
material use, energy efficiency, and waste avoidance can minimize or eliminate
environmental impacts; however, once the design concept is established, improving
environmental performance generally involves time-consuming design iterations. DFE
therefore may involve activities throughout the product development process and requires
an interdisciplinary approach.

Figure 4-1 Sustainable production process

4.1. Product lifecycle
Life cycle thinking is the basis of DFE. This helps to expand the manufacturer’s concern with
the production and distribution of its products to comprise a closed-loop system relating the
product life cycle to the natural life cycle. A typical product lifecycle begins with the extraction
and processing of raw materials from natural resources, followed by production, distribution,
and use of the product and eventual disposal of the product at the end of its useful life. In the
DFE process, product developers strive for a closed loop that thrives to consider several
recovery options—remanufacturing or reuse of components and recycling of materials. Each
of the product life cycle stages may consume energy and other resources and may generate
emissions and waste, all of which have environmental impacts. From this life cycle
perspective, to reach conditions of environmental sustainability, the materials in products
must be balanced in a sustainable, closed-loop system. This gives rise to three challenges of
product design to reach sustainability depicted in figure 4-2.

Eliminate the use of non-renewable natural

resources

Eliminate disposal of synthetic and inorganic

materials that do not decay quickly

Eliminate creation of toxic wastes that are not part of

natural life cycles

Figure 4-2 challenges of product design for sustainability

4.2. Environmental impacts of products

Every product has some environmental impacts at certain phases of its overall lifecycle. These
impacts are itemized below:

 Global warming: Scientific data and models show that the temperature of the earth
is gradually increasing as a result of the accumulation of greenhouse gases,
particulates, and water vapour in the upper atmosphere. This effect appears to be
accelerating as a result of emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4),
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), black carbon particles, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from
industrial processes and products.
 Resource depletion: Many of the raw materials used for production, such as iron ore,
gas, oil, and coal, are non-renewable and supplies are limited.
 Solid waste: Products may generate solid waste throughout their life cycle. Some of
this waste is recycled, but most is disposed of in incinerators or landfills. Incinerators
 generate air pollution and toxic ash (which goes into landfills). Landfills may also
create concentrations of toxic substances, generate methane gas (CH 4), and release
groundwater pollutants.
 Water pollution: The most common sources of water pollution are discharges from
industrial processes, which may include heavy metals, fertilizers, solvents, oils,
synthetic substances, acids, and suspended solids. Waterborne pollutants may affect
groundwater, drinking water, and fragile ecosystems.
 Air pollution: Sources of air pollution include emissions from factories, power
generating plants, incinerators, residential and commercial buildings, and motor
vehicles. Typical pollutants include CO2, NOx, sulphur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and
volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
 Land degradation: Land degradation concerns the adverse effects that raw material
extraction and production, such as mining, farming, and forestry, have on the
environment. The effects include reduced soil fertility, soil erosion, the salinity of land
and water, and deforestation.
 Biodiversity: Biodiversity concerns the variety of plant and animal species, and is
affected by land clearing for urban development, mining, and other industrial
activities.
 Ozone depletion: The ozone layer protects the earth against the harmful effects of
the sun’s radiation. It is degraded by reactions with nitric acid (created by the burning
of fossil fuels) and chlorine compounds (such as CFCs).

4.3. Process for Design for environment

At each phase of the product development process, certain activities are incorporated that
are necessary for the design of the environment process. These activities may appear strictly
linear however, product development teams might likely repeat certain steps which makes
the design for environment an iterative process. The design for environment steps is shown
in figure 4-3.
 Figure 4-3 The design for environment process.

Set the design for environment agenda

The process of design for environment begins with the setting of the agenda. This step
consists of 3 activities: identifying the internal and external drivers of the DFE process, setting
the environmental goal for the product and setting up the DFE team. Internal drivers are the
DFE objectives within the organization while external drivers are typical objectives that
emanate from external factors which must be taken into consideration when defining DFE
objectives. These drivers are summarised in table 4-1.
 Table 4-1 Drivers of the DFE agenda

Internal Drivers External Drivers

Product Quality Environmental legislation
Public image Competition
Cost reduction Market demand
Innovation Suppliers
Operational safety Trade organizations
Employee motivation Social pressures
Ethical responsibility
Consumer behaviour

The 2nd step which entails setting the DFE goals is an important activity in the production
planning phase. This phase is responsible for setting the environmental goals for each product
development project. These set goals define how the organization complies with
environmental regulations and how the organization reduces the environmental impact of its
product, services and operations. These DFE goals can be both short-term and long-term. The
set DFE goals can be at the different lifecycle stages of a product which include materials,
production, distribution, use and recovery.

The 3rd activity within the setting of the DFE agenda is the team setup. DFE requires the
participation of many functional experts in the product development project. The typical
composition of a DFE team (often a sub-team within the overall project team) consists of a
DFE leader, an environmental chemistry and materials expert, a manufacturing engineer, and
a representative from the purchasing and supply chain organization. Of course, the DFE team
composition depends on the organization and needs of the specific project, and may also
include marketing professionals, outside consultants, suppliers, or other experts.

Identify potential environmental impacts

Within the concept development phase, DFE begins by identifying the potential
environmental impacts of the product over its lifecycle. This enables the product
development team to consider environmental impacts at the concept stage even though little
or no specific data (regarding material and energy use, emissions, and waste generation) are
available for the actual product and a detailed environmental impact assessment is not yet
possible. In the case of product redesign, however, relevant data may be provided by impact
analysis of some existing products.
Select DFE guidelines

Guidelines help product design teams make early DFE decisions without the type of detailed
environmental impact analysis that is only possible after the design is more fully specified.
Relevant guidelines may be selected based in part on the qualitative assessment of life cycle
impacts (from step 2) Selecting relevant guidelines during the concept development phase
allows the product development team to apply them throughout the product development
project. A compilation of DFE guidelines is shown in table 4-2. Each life cycle stage has its DFE
guidelines that provide product development teams with instructions on how to reduce the
environmental impacts of a product.

Table 4-2 A compilation of DFE guidelines

Lifecycle Stage Example Design for Environment Goals

Materials • Reduce the use of raw materials.
• Choose plentiful, renewable raw materials.
• Eliminate toxic materials.
• Increase the energy efficiency of material extraction processes.
• Reduce discards and waste.
• Increase the use of recovered and recycled materials.
Production • Reduce the use of process materials.
• Specify process materials that can be fully recovered and recycled.
• Eliminate toxic process materials.
• Select processes with high energy efficiency.
• Reduce production scrap and waste.
Distribution • Plan the most energy-efficient shipping.
• Reduce emissions from transport.
• Eliminate toxic and dangerous packaging materials.
• Eliminate or reuse packaging.
Use • Extend useful product life.
• Promote the use of products under the intended conditions.
• Enable clean and efficient servicing operations.
• Eliminate emissions and reduce energy consumption during use.
Recovery • Facilitate product disassembly to separate materials.
• Enable the recovery and remanufacturing of components.
• Facilitate material recycling.
• Reduce waste volume for incineration and landfill deposit.

Apply the DFE guidelines to the initial product design

The guidelines established in the preceding steps are eventually applied to the initial design.
This is important to maintain the set environmental considerations to ensure a sustainable
product development process. Such considerations as already mentioned include material
section, power/energy, waste management and the production process.

Assess the environmental impacts

The next step is to assess, to the extent possible, the environmental impacts of the product
over its entire life cycle. To do so with precision requires a detailed understanding of how the
product is to be produced, distributed, used over its lifetime, and recycled or disposed of at
the end of its useful life. This assessment is generally done based on the detailed bill of
materials (BOM), including sources of energy, component material specifications, suppliers,
transportation modes, waste streams, recycling methods, and disposal means. Several
quantitative life cycle assessment (LCA) tools are available to conduct such an environmental
assessment. These tools range in price and complexity and would be selected based on the
types of materials and processes involved, and the precision required for the analysis. LCA
requires a significant amount of time, training, and data. Many LCA analyses are comparative
and provide a basis for considering the environmental performance of product design
alternatives. Commercial LCA software is becoming widely used in product design, and
supporting data are available for common materials, production processes, transport
methods, energy generation processes, and disposal scenarios.

Refine the Product Design to Reduce or Eliminate the Environmental Impacts

The objective of this step and subsequent DFE iterations is to reduce or eliminate any
significant environmental impacts through a redesign. The process repeats until the
environmental impacts have been reduced to an acceptable level and the environmental
performance fits the DFE goals. Redesign for ongoing improvement of DFE may also continue
after production begins.

Reflect on the DFE process and results

As with every aspect of the product development process, the final activity is to ask:

 How well did we execute the DFE process?

 How can our DFE process be improved?
 What DFE improvements can be made on derivative and future products?

To quantify the results of the DFE process, assessment tools can be created which consider
set assessment factors. This tool which functions based on a predetermined grading system
will be used to establish in certainty the success or failure of the DFE process and also where
applicable identify problematic areas and provide room for improvement.