Product Design

DE ZG541
BITS Pilani Lecture - 5 Dr. Glynn John
Mechanical Engineering
Pilani Campus
 BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus

DE ZG541, Product Design

Lecture No. 5
 Concept Generation
• Clarify the Problem
• Search Externally
• Search Internally
• Explore Systematically

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QFD – House of Quality

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Interpret Raw Data in Terms of Customer Needs

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 Specs from Bosch
GSR 18V-50 Professional

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Specs from Bosch
(GSR 18V-50 Professional)

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 Specs from Bosch
GSR 18V-50 Professional

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 Final Specifications
 Final specifications are developed by assessing the actual
technological constraints and the expected production costs using
analytical and physical models.
 During this refinement phase the team must make difficult trade-offs
among various desirable characteristics of the product.

The five-step process for refining the specifications is:

1. Develop technical models of the product.
2. Develop a cost model of the product.
3. Refine the specifications, making trade-offs where necessary.
4. Flow down the specifications as appropriate.
5. Reflect on the results and the process.

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Developing a
concept into a
product without
prior effort on the
earlier phases of
the design process
is like building a
house with no
foundation.
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Concept Generation

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 The Activity of Concept Generation
 A product concept is an approximate description of the
technology, working principles, and form of the product.
 It is a concise description of how the product will satisfy the
customer needs.
 A concept is usually expressed as a sketch or as a rough three-
dimensional model and is often accompanied by a brief textual
description.
 The degree to which a product satisfies customers and can be
successfully commercialized depends to a large measure on
the quality of the underlying concept.
 A good concept is sometimes poorly implemented in
subsequent development phases, but a poor concept can rarely
be manipulated to achieve commercial success.
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 Structured Approaches Reduce the Likelihood of
Costly Problems
Common dysfunctions exhibited by development teams
during concept generation include:
 Consideration of only one or two alternatives, often
proposed by the most assertive members of the team.
 Failure to consider carefully the usefulness of concepts
employed by other firms in related and unrelated products.
 Involvement of only one or two people in the process,
resulting in lack of confidence and commitment by the rest
of the team.
 Ineffective integration of promising partial solutions.
 Failure to consider entire categories of solutions.
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 A Five-Step Method
 This chapter presents a five-step concept generation
method.
 The method, outlined breaks a complex problem into
simpler sub-problems.
 Solution concepts are then identified for the sub-problems
by external and internal search procedures.
 Classification trees and concept combination tables are then
used to systematically explore the space of solution
concepts and to integrate the sub-problem solutions into a
total solution.
 Finally, the team takes a step back to reflect on the validity
and applicability of the results, as well as on the process
used.
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 Clarify the Problem

 Clarifying the problem consists of developing a general

understanding and then breaking the problem down into
sub-problems if necessary
 The mission statement for the project, the customer needs
list, and the preliminary product specification are the ideal
inputs to the concept generation process
 these pieces of information have to be refined as the
concept generation phase begins

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 Decompose a Complex Problem into Simpler
Subproblems
 Many design challenges are too complex to solve as a
single problem and can be usefully divided into several
simpler sub-problems.
 For example, the design of a complex product like a
document copier can be thought of as a collection of more
focused design problems, including, for example, the
design of a document handler, the design of a paper
feeder, the design of a printing device, and the design of
an image capture device.

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Function diagram of a handheld nailer

A good rule of thumb is to create between 3

and 10 sub-functions in the diagram.

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Step 2: Search Externally
External search is aimed at
 Interview Lead Users
 Consult Experts
 Search Patents
 Search Published Literature
 Benchmark Related Products

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 Step 3: Search Internally
 Internal search is the use of personal and team knowledge
and creativity to generate solution concepts.
 Often called brainstorming, this type of search is internal in
that all of the ideas to emerge from this step are created
from knowledge already in the possession of the team

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Ideas

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 Step 3: Search Internally
1. Suspend judgment
2. Generate a lot of ideas.
3. Welcome ideas that may seem infeasible.
4. Use graphical and physical media.

 Text and verbal language are inherently inefficient vehicles for describing
physical entities.
 Whether working as a group or as an individual, abundant sketching surfaces
should be available.
 Foam, clay, cardboard, and other three dimensional media may also be
appropriate aids for problems requiring a deep understanding of form and
spatial relationships.

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Concept Classification Tree

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Concept combination table

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Multiple solutions arising from the combination of a motor
with transmission

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 Reflect on the Solutions and the Process

Although the reflection step is placed here at the end for

convenience in presentation, reflection should in fact be
performed throughout the whole process. Questions to ask
include:
 Is the team developing confidence that the solution space
has been fully explored?
 Are there alternative function diagrams?
 Are there alternative ways to decompose the problem?
 Have external sources been thoroughly pursued?
 Have ideas from everyone been accepted and integrated
in the process?

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 Thank you

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