DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

AND ORGANIZATION
MEM531
INTEGRATED PRODUCT DESIGN 1

1.2 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT:

THE FRONT END PROCESS

Development Iteration

What is development iteration?

Process proceed in purely sequential steps rarely practiced.

It may be overlapped in time.
New results/information may need the team to repeat an earlier process.

Uncertainties

Concept Development Process

Identifying customer need

Establishing target specification

Translating customers need into technical terms.

List of target specification refined to be consistent with the constraints.

Concept generation

Understand what the customer wants.

Customers need statements (listing with appropriate weights for some or
all needs).

Explore the space/ideas that may address the customer needs.

Concept selection

Analyzing & eliminating various product concepts (not promising

concept)

Concept testing

Setting final specification

Revise the target specification.

Project planning

Have the concept meet the customer needs?

Yes proceed.
No terminate/repeat earlier activities.

Detailed development schedule.

Strategy to minimize development time.

Economic analysis

Financial support.
Development cost vs. manufacturing cost.

Benchmarking of competitive products

Compare with other competitors product gain ideas.

Modeling and prototyping

Early proof-of-concept.
Demonstrate the product to customer
ergonomics, style, aesthetic, etc.)

for early evaluation

(e.g.