How to develop new products utilizing methods to understand customer requirements.

P. N. Rao
University of Northern Iowa

“If I had an hour to solve a
problem I'd spend 55 minutes
thinking about the problem
and 5 minutes thinking about
solutions.” - Albert Einstein

1. Basic research (for general nature laws)
2. Applied research (for specific problems)
3. Development (design for prototyping)
4. Engineering (design for assembly)
5. Manufacturing (design for efficiency & quality)
6. Marketing (design for acceptance & affordability)
7. Promotion (design for diffusion)
8. Improvement & enhancement (design for
sustainability)

An Innovative Product - Emergency flashlight,
the world's most reliable flashlight,
guarantees light without batteries, forever !

• Marketing signal – a strong desire for a perpetual and
handy light source
• Technology signals – we have new components
available
o space saving and long life white LED as light source
o tiny and yet high capacitance “Super Cap” as secondary
power source
• Strong engineering and industrial design capabilities
o developed the small and efficient power generator as
primary power source
o elegant and ergonomic product outlook

Faraday’s Law
o Shaking the torch causes a high strength magnet to
pass back and forth between a wire coil, inducing
EMF across the wire coil
o the induced EMF is stored in the “Super Cap”
o the white LED drains power from the “Super Cap”

April 14, 2024 Nageswara Rao Posinasetti 8
Measure of effectiveness of a design
process
Product cost
Product quality
Time to market

Xerox – 50% of the final cost to the results of
the design process
Design decisions influence
Materials used
Goods purchased
The parts
The shape of those parts
The products sold
The price of the product, and
The sales

Courtesy: David Ullman – Mechanical
Design Process, McGraw Hill, 2003
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
Poor
Design
Average
design
Good
design
Manufacturing
cost
Efficient
Manufacturing
Average
Manufacturing
Inefficient
Manufacturing

New product Ideas come from
Marketing department
Engineers and Scientists
2 to 10% of revenue is spent on R & D
Design and Refine

14 April 2024 Posinasetti Nageswara Rao 12
Identify customer needs
Benchmark the competition
Establish target specifications
Generate product specifications
Select product concepts
Test product concepts
Set final specifications
Plan manufacturing process

Identify customers
Generate customer requirements
Evaluate the customer requirements
Benchmark the competition
Generate engineering specifications
Set targets for performance

Ensure that the product is focused on customer
needs
Identify latent or hidden needs as well as
explicit needs
Create an archival record of the needs activity
of the development process
Ensure that no critical customer need is missed
or forgotten

Gather raw data from customers
Interpret the raw data in terms of
customer needs
Organize the needs into primary,
secondary and tertiary needs
Establish the relative importance of the
needs
Reflect on the results and the process

Interviews
Audio recording
Notes
Video recording
Focus groups
Group of 8 to 12 customers
Observing the product in use
Written survey

The study of a competitor's product or
business practices in order to improve the
performance of one's own company
Continuous process of measuring
products, services and practice against the
toughest competitors or those recognized
as industry leaders.

Phases Tasks Detailed Tasks
Planning -Identify what is to be
benchmarked (attributes)
-Identify comparative
companies
-Determine data collection
method and collect data
-Identify customers’
expectation
-Identify specific products
-Identify functions and
features to benchmark
-Devise metrics for each F & F
to be benchmarked
-Use product dissection to
determine performance
Analysis -Determine current
performance “gap”.
-Project future performance
Identify “Best in class” for
each F & F

Market survey
Select representative models
Purchase models for dissection
Set up the benchmark process
Customer expectation list
Functional parameter list
Dissection procedure

20
QFD is used for all new product development.
Developed in Japan in mid 1970’s
It is organized to develop the major pieces of
information necessary to understand the
problem
Hearing the voice of the customer
Develop specifications
Finding how specifications measure the customer
needs
Determine how well competition meet the goals
Develop numerical targets

Each room contains information
Customers – Who
Customer requirements – What
Determine the product design - How

How an engineering parameter relates to a
customers requirement
 = 9 = Strong relationship
 = 3 = Medium relationship
 = 1 = Weak relationship
Blank = 0 = No relationship
Courtesy: David Ullman – Mechanical
Design Process, McGraw Hill, 2003

Generate concepts based on results of planning
and specification definition phases.
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.
Evaluate concepts against requirements
Best alternative with the least expenditure of
time and other resources needed to gain
knowledge.

A concept is an idea that is sufficiently
developed to evaluate the physical
principles that govern its behavior.
Concept can be represented as
Rough sketches
Flow diagram
Prototype
Calculations

If you generate an idea, it is probably a
poor one.
If you generate twenty ideas, you may
have a good one.
He who spends too much time developing
a single concept realizes only that concept.

It is necessary to understand how similar
devices perform.
Benchmarking as discussed earlier helps in
this process.
To steal ideas from one person is
plagiarism, to be influenced by many is
good design

To understand how a product works
Step 1: For the whole device, examine
interfaces with other objects
Step 2: Remove a component for more
detailed study
Step 3: examine each interface to find the
flow of energy, information or materials

The goal of functional modeling is to
decompose the problem in terms of the
flow of energy, material and information
Four basic steps in applying the techniques
for successful decomposition

The goal here is to generate a single
statement of the overall function on the
basis of the customer requirements

This decomposition helps in
Search for solution is controlled
Better understanding of the design problem
May be able to use some ready made
solutions

Goal of this step is to decompose the overall
function
The division into finer functional detail leads to
a better understanding of the design problem.
Breaking down the functions of the design may
lead to the realization that there are some
already existing components that can provide
some of the functionality required.

Guidelines
Consider What, not How
Use only objects described in the problem
specification or overall function
Break the function down as finely as possible
Consider all operational sequences
Use standard notation when possible

The goal is to add order to the functions
generated in the previous step.
Guidelines
The flows must be in logical or temporal order
Redundant functions must be identified and
combined
Functions not within the system boundary must be
eliminated
Energy and material must be conserved as they
flow through the system

Further decomposing

Dreaming up new ideas is an enjoyable
experience
Try not to invent the wheel
Sperry Gyroscope needed a gyro shaft in
position with both axial and lateral accuracy to
support the gyroscope.
A shaft with a conical end riding on three balls in a
cup
Patented design
Similar design developed by Leonardo da Vinci

Brainstorming
6-3-5 method
Analogies
Reference books
Patents
Theory of inventive methods

Record all the ideas generated
Generate as many ideas as possible
Think wild, silly, impossible ideas
Do not allow evaluation of the ideas

Cartoon
Problem with brain storming is that it can be
dominated by one or a few team members
Arrange team (6) around the table.
Each divides a clean sheet of paper into 3 columns
Each member writes three ideas in these columns
After 5 minutes, the sheets are passed to the right.
Each member then writes 3 more ideas on the paper
after studying the earlier concepts.
The cycle repeats

Using similar equipment in other devices
Sometimes it may give poor solutions also

Use publications

Transform current concepts into others by
taking them to extremes or considering inverses
Examples
Make one dimension very small (zero) or very large
(infinity)
Take the current order and switch them around
Try taking what is the inside of something and
making it the outside or vice versa
Make something that is rigid, flexible

Patent literature is a good source of ideas
Utility patents
Design patents
Patent search is a difficult process
Also one has to understand the patent
information presentation methodology

In a new domain
Either use experts, or
Gain enough experience through study
Manufacturers’ catalogs
Design study guides
Thomas register

These techniques uses the function
identified to foster ideas
First find as many concepts as possible for
each of the function
Combine these individual concepts into
overall concepts that meet all the
functional requirements
Morphology – study of form or structure

First find as many alternative functions as
possible
For each sub function develop as many
means of accomplishing the function as
possible
e.g. Mechanical storing energy – springs, air
springs, elastomers

Combine one concept for one function and
then combine those selected into a single
design
It generates too many ideas

The goal is to expend the least amount of
resources on deciding which concepts
have the highest potential for becoming a
quality product
How to base judgment whether to
continue or abandon based on limited
knowledge and information?
Design is learning, and resources are
limited

Evaluation
Comparison
Decision making
If you thought that science was certain –
well that is just an error on your part
• Richard Feynman

Absolute comparison
Each alternative concept is directly
compared with some target set by a criterion
Relative comparison
Alternative concepts are compared with
each other using measures defined by the
criteria

For each concept the possibilities are
It is not feasible, it will never work
It might work if something else happens
It is worth considering
It is not feasible:
Technologically infeasible
May not meet customer requirements
Not normally done that way
Not a original idea, and hence no enthusiasm

Ideally refine the best concept into a
product
Many a design projects starts here
Starting a project with a single conceptual
design in mind, without concern for the
earlier phases, is poor design practice.

Products generated are evaluated for
performance, cost and production
It is an iterative process

Design engineer’s responsibility will not end
with the release of product documentation
He may be involved in
Manufacturing and assembly support
Support for vendors
Help introducing the product to the customer
Engineering change process
Product retirement

How to develop new products utilizing methods to understand customer requirements.

How to develop new products utilizing methods to understand customer requirements.

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