ME3013

Industrial Management

Chapter 5
Product and Process Designs
by Ms. Nor Nadirah Najib

The Design Process

• Design has a tremendous impact on the quality of a
product or service. Poor designs may not meet customer
needs or may be so difficult to make that quality suffers.
Costly designs can result in overpriced products.
• If the design process is too lengthy, a competitor may
capture the market by being the first to introduce new
products, services, or features.
• Design may be an art, but the design process must be
managed effectively. An effective design process:
– Matches product or service characteristics with customer
requirements,
– Ensures that customer requirements are met in the simplest and
least costly manner,
– Reduces the time required to design a new product or service,
and
– Minimizes the revisions necessary to make a design workable.

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 Product design – purposes
• defines appearance of product
• sets standards for performance
• specifies which materials are to be used
• determines dimensions and tolerances

Product design – outcomes

• ensures that customer requirements are met in the simplest and
least costly manner, and workable.

IDEA GENERATION
The design process begins with understanding the
customer and actively identifying customer needs.

Ideas for new products or improvements to existing

products can be generated from many sources,
including
– Company’s technology R&D department.
– Customer complaints or suggestions.
– Marketing/economy research.
– Suppliers feedback.
– Employee comments.
– Comparing product/process against best-in-class.
– Reverse engineering - Dismantling competitor’s product to improve your own
product.

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 The Design Process

RAPID PROTOTYPING AND CONCURRENT DESIGN

• Engineers take general performance specifications
and transform them into a physical product or service
with technical design specifications.
• The process involves building a prototype, testing the
prototype, revising the design, retesting, and so on
until a viable design is determined

Rapid prototyping creates preliminary design models

that are quickly tested and either discarded (as fast
failures) or further refined.
The iterative process involves form and functional
design, as well as production design
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• It is important that these design decisions be performed

concurrently at the rapid prototype stage.
• Design decisions affect sales strategies, efficiency of
manufacture, assembly quality, speed of repair, and product
cost. Design decisions overlap and early changes in the design
are less disruptive than those made late in the process.
• Effective designs, as shown in Figure, break down the series of
walls between functional areas and involve persons from
different backgrounds and areas of expertise early in the
design process.
• This process of jointly and iteratively developing a design is
called concurrent design.
• Concurrent design improves both the quality of the design
and the time-to-market.

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 FORM DESIGN
• Form design refers to the physical appearance
of a product—its shape, color, size, and style.
• Aesthetics such as image, market appeal, and
personal identification are also part of form
design.
• In many cases, functional design must be
adjusted to make the product look or feel right

FUNCTIONAL DESIGN
• Functional design is concerned with how the
product performs. It seeks to meet the
performance specifications of fitness for use
by the customer.
• Three performance characteristics considered
during this phase of design are reliability,
maintainability, and usability

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 PRODUCTION DESIGN
• Production design is concerned with how the
product will be made.
• Designs that are difficult to make often result in
poor-quality products.
• Engineers tend to overdesign products, with too
many features, options, and parts. Lack of
knowledge of manufacturing capabilities can
result in designs that are impossible to make or
require skills and resources not currently
available
• Recommended approaches to production design
include simplification, standardization,
modularity, and design for manufacture

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 • Simplification: reduces the number of parts,
assemblies, or options in a product.

• Standardization: when commonly available

and interchangeable parts are used.

• Modular design: combines standardized

building blocks, or modules, to create unique
finished products.

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Design for manufacture (DFM)

• Process of designing a product so that it can be produced easily and
economically. The term was coined in an effort to emphasize the
importance of incorporating production design early in the design
process.
• When successful, DFM not only improves the quality of product
design but also reduces both the time and cost of product design
and manufacture.

• DFM guidelines promote good design practice, such as:

1. Minimize the number of parts and subassemblies.
2. Avoid tools, separate fasteners, and adjustments.
3. Use standard parts when possible and repeatable, well-understood
processes.
4. Design parts for many uses, and modules that can be combined in
different ways.
5. Design for ease of assembly, minimal handling, and proper
presentation.
6. Allow for efficient and adequate testing and replacement of parts.

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