Product design
There are numerous studies on qualitative approaches in the product design.
Common description of new product development’ is “the process that transforms technical
ideas or market needs and opportunities into a new product on to the market“.
Product development and management Association /PDMA/ defines ‘new product
development’ as “the overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and
marketing plan creation and evaluation, and commercialisation of a new product. [15]
Walsh et al. (1992) describes ‘product design and development’ as “the activity that transforms
the brief or initial market specification into design concepts and prototypes and then into the detailed
drawings, technical specifications and other instructions needed to actually manufacture a new
product. [22]
Business dictionary defines product-design as the detailed specification of manufactured items
parts and their relationships to the whole. A product design needs to take into account how the item
will perform its intended functionality in an efficient, safe and reliable manner. The product also needs
to be capable of being made economically and to be attractive to targeted consumers. [14]
For product design there are several known models based on the specification phase of the
development process.
Fig. 1.
The Design Quality
Roth [18] definition of design quality is ‘the processes and activities that need to be carried out
to enable the manufacture of a product that fully meets customer requirements.’
Business dictionary defines quality of design as level of effectiveness of the design function in
determining a product's operational requirements (and their incorporation into design requirements)
that can be converted into a finished product in a production process. [16]
Guide Design for Quality definition is - DFQ is the disciplined application of engineering tools
and concepts with the goal of achieving robust design development and definition in the Pd process.
The DFQ process allows the engineer to: identify, plan-for and manage factors that impact system
robustness and reliability upfront in the design process. [1]
Design quality measures vary from organization to organization. They typically involve some
measure that attempts to quantify how well the design function achieved certain objectives. These
objectives can be product specific or they can be aligned with organizational goals. Examples [4]:
• Carryover parts usage (%),
• Number of variations for similar products (part count),
• Change Management,
• Cost avoidance and cost savings,
• Product Improvement (number of improvements),
• Number of technical changes to the product before and after the start of production.
Design Process Efficiency. Design process measures are metrics intended to quantify the
efficiency or cost effectiveness of the design process over all engineering design activities. These are
generally referred to as productivity or efficiency measures. The ones quoted by the panel are:
• Productivity = (Sales – Materials)/Engineering Labour,
• Productivity = Engineering cost / Sales (inverse of above),
• Productivity = (number of part numbers going through the PDP process)/(current year
engineering expense),
• % Change in productivity,
• Project throughput.
The lean product design
The essence of Lean is to eliminate waste in all aspects of product development and related
processes even before getting the product into production. The term is derived from lean
manufacturing. The starting point is the customer's requirements and determine the value added. All
others need not satisfy the customer and the customer must pay for it is considered waste. This
includes: identification of features of the product with the highest added value, delete items without
value and engage customers in product development stages [19]:
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• Focusing on the initial development phase, which takes into account many variations, as there is
room for optimisation.
• Parallel implementation of activities supported by the communication strategy.
• Optimise the development process and eliminating waste.
• Linking specialists from functional departments in multi professional teams.
• Waste reduction options in the draft.
. Examples of waste in product design:
• The proposal was never used, completed or delivered.
• Downtime in search of information, waiting for test results, etc.
• Unnecessary documents and prototypes.
• Insufficient use of product design techniques.
• Lack of risk analysis of manufacturing defects.
The best way to eliminate the losses that don’t add value within the process of product design
and development is to apply the “lean thinking” philosophy. Since “lean” business cannot produce
“bold” products, the Lean Design and Lean Product Development methods get into concern. Chances
to dramatic reductions of costs during the product design are:
• Reduction of direct material costs: platform components and material, simplifying of design,
reduction of useless waste, samples, prototypes, etc.
• Reduction of direct costs on experiments and testing simplifying of design - design for lean
manufacturing and assembly, reduction of part count, adaptation of product tolerances to
operational possibilities process standardizing, etc.
• Reduction of operational costs: minimum impact on reconfiguration of manufacturing processes
and systems, modular design, standards for modifications according to customer’s demands,
better utilization of manufacturing capacities and human resources.
• Minimizing development costs: platform of design strategies, lean QFD, Six Sigma, design of
experiments, value engineering, and others.
• Acceleration of product development process affects three basic lean principles:
• Concentration of development activities: perform the work tasks in the shortest time possible,
and minimum moving of project documentation between individuals and departments. That can
be achieved with simultaneous solving and strong IT support.
• Application of knowledge basis from previous experiences portfolio. It means to make use of
appropriate expertise, learn more than until now and update the knowledge base with
development-relevant data from suppliers, competitors, customers, and partners.
Lean companies [20]:
• Prevent product failures rather than react to them.
• Create the culture to design quality and reliability into their products.
• Use product development teams to ensure that the quality and reliability issues of customers,
manufacturing, service, and suppliers are properly represented.
• Open communication channels with customers to obtain timely and detailed product failure
data.
• Maintain a well-conceived failure database of product field failure modes supported by failure
analysis to root cause.
• Understand in detail the capabilities and limitations of both internal and suppliers'
manufacturing operations.
Agile Product Development
The phrase "Agile Product Development" can be interpreted in two ways, both of which are
correct and applicable to a wide range of products and industries:
1. An agile product development process that can rapidly introduce a steady succession of
incremental product improvements which can be called "new" products — that are really planned
"variations on a theme," based on common parts and modular product architecture. This capability
results in ultra-fast time-to- market, much faster than possible with independent products that do not
benefit from product-family synergies in design and manufacture.
2. Development of agile products that can be manufactured in the following agile environments: Agile
Manufacturing, Just-in-Time, Build-to-Order, and Mass Customisation.
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The scope of agility – definitions and overview
Emend of speed, flexibility, innovation, quality, proactively and profitability through the integration of
reconfigurable resources that must be achieved in synergy. Quickly react to change by re-
configuration of products, processes and organization structure. [5], [7].
Factories, based on Agile Manufacturing and customisation, are characterized [6] by: future
production sites for a large variety of sophisticated products are offering flexible, short cycle time and
variability controlling manufacturing capability. These manufacturing approaches ensure energy-
efficient, reliable and cost effective production as well as production set-up/ramp-up with reduced cost
and time through lean and simpler ICT. The adaptive (agile) enterprises exploit capabilities to thrive in
uncertain and unpredictable business environment. Firms are capable of rapidly responding to
changes in customer demand.
The agile manufacturing system should be able to produce a variety of components at low
cost and in a short time period. To achieve Agile Manufacturing, company need agile design
processes. [7].
Lean product development techniques, many companies have adopted in recent years,
minimize waste and boost efficiency, but they also lock in product attributes too early and limit
innovation.
Agile product development system is capable of addressing frequent iterations of multiple
design options early in the process, based on continuous testing and highly sophisticated customer-
driven design changes. This method, which both encourages flexibility and recognizes the
unpredictability of the early stages of product development, ensures that the latter part of the cycle is
much less uncertain, enabling companies to bring more popular products to market at lower cost, and
with fewer delays. [7]
The goal of agile product development is to achieve rapid and frequent iterations with multiple
design options up front — driven by continuous testing and granular customer analyses — in order to
optimise, balance, and prioritise requirements and identify risks earlier. This early stage of the process
has four primary characteristics:
1. Rapid and iterative development model Companies generate multiple concepts, and in a period of
weeks, rather than months, test product prototypes with customers.
2. Modular architecture. By breaking a product concept into modules, companies can give sub-teams
the responsibility to work out the best set of solutions for the final design and manufacturing of their
part of the project, including interfaces, materials, or potential trouble spots.
3. Early risk identification. As cross-functional teams rapidly iterate and synthesize product ideas and
concepts, more often than not the deep dive into the design process reveals potential development
risks. With this knowledge, teams can prioritise potential risks and incorporate risk reduction plans into
the development slate, while scheduling routine test events to verify that risks have been addressed.
4. Intensive supplier involvement. Traditionally, companies hold suppliers and the manufacturing
function at arm’s length until product requirements and concepts have matured. By contrast, the agile
front-end approach seeks to gain the input of all - customers, partners, suppliers, and sales and
manufacturing teams - to critique designs, offer insights, and broadly minimize risk and maximize
efficiency up front so that fewer changes need to be made during production or product launch.
Methods and tools for product innovation
There is a large collection of techniques, methods and tools to support all phases of product
innovations. Applications depend on innovation and building innovation potential of the body. Here are
the comparison of the preferred methods and tools for product design in engineering with an emphasis
on automobile production [2], [10], [12].
Selection tools for conceptual design focuses on the management of:
• Changing customer preferences,
• Incorrect specification of the parameters of the products,
• Different levels of technology maturity,
• Markets, financial uncertainty and the changing legal, political and social environment.
Preferred methods are particularly lean and system engineering. A comprehensive set of
techniques for improving product development can be found in specialist publications. Sample
selection techniques is in the Table 2. [12]
Other approaches to the selection of techniques for product design:
Software Design Tools: CAD - Computer Aided Design, CAM - Computer Aided Manufacturing, EDA -
Electronic Design Automation, DFM - Design For Manufacture, DFT - Design For Test, DFA - Design
For Assembly. [17]
Product Design Tools. These would be used predominantly during the design functions, to ensure that
the right product is specified and designed and to reduce design time and costs. Within the process of
product design, are there used the tools as: Design for manufacturing/assembly (DFM/A), Design for
quality (DFQ), Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), Design to cost (DTC), Quality function deployment
(QFD), Design failure mode and effect analysis (DFMEA). [18]
In the automotive industry, are widely used methodologies of product quality planning (APQP, VDA
4.3) and the requirements for the approval process to mass production of parts (PPAP, PPF).
Advanced product quality planning (or APQP) is a framework of procedures and techniques
used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. The purpose of APQP is to
produce a product quality plan, which will support development of a product that will satisfy the
customer. APQP serves as a guide in the development process and also a standard way to share
results between suppliers and automotive companies.
Part of the quality control standards in the automotive industry is methodological guide PPAP
(Production Part Approval Process) and PPF (Produktionsprozess-und Produktfreigabe) - Unlocking
the production process and product. These guides provide a set of requirements for the release of the
production process and product to manufacture. Their purpose is to determine whether the supplier
properly understand all the customer's requirements and specifications whether the manufacturing
process has the potential to produce a product that the requirements will be in the actual production
volume and at the agreed production speed consistently met.
The significance of design methods and techniques. In study [3] was made a survey of selected
frequency techniques in practice, the automotive industry. The survey results reflected in the 0-3 point
scale are follows:
• Design for Manufacture and Assembly 2,4
• Design for Reliability and Durability 2,2
• Design for Six Sigma 1,0
• Value Analysis 0,8
• Design for Service, Repair and Maintenance 0,5
• Design for Green Manufacturing 0,5
Shown differentiated approach to product design tool is caused by authors analyze the various
phases of design and various product sectors. The application design tools are needed specialized
methodology. In the next part will focus on the results of our research on product design tools to create
prototypes of cars.
Case Study: Techniques for Product Design in project of student car
Testing the potential application of techniques for product design was the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering TU Kosice done on a project of student car conducted by the author [9]. The
project was to design and construct a fully functional car in real size, which represented the University
faculty and students study the production of cars in their acquired skills and knowledge of the issue of
product innovations.
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The car was taken by its originality, aggressiveness, speed, and innovative features modern
and sporty appearance. The project modelled the real process automakers, with the real constraints
and didactic intention maximum creative team-based methods learning by doing.
The sequence of phases of the project were as follows: generation of policy options the car,
design proposals, graphic and computer design, evaluation, modelling, technical solutions,
calculations, experiments, production decisions - subcontracting, original equipment manufacturing,
assembly and testing.
The new car was built on the Skoda Fabia platform. Body and interior are completely original
components. The new solution is a hinged door opening. Other innovations are the engine and
chassis modifications. The new car is shown in Fig. 2.
Project management was a crosscutting activity, as part of the student team was not experience of
dealing with large and complex projects.
Lean design methods, because in conditions of university research projects are limited financial and
technological resources.
Design for quality, because the car represents the quality of student education in innovation and
product design techniques. It shows the conditions for their application in automotive research and
development.
