Moulding PRODUCT DESIGN CONCEPT

33.0  PRODUCT DESIGN CONCEPT

33.1    Introduction:

Product development and design is closely linked with industrial activity and production. When a new product is planned, the designer has to bear in mind the available resources of the plant and the possible impact of the firm having to acquire, modify or substitute existing machines and equipment or buy various components from other suppliers. It is therefore obvious that product development and design is at the core of the development and growth of the 'production centre and its departments. Thus, product design is one .of the fundamental elements of management policy.

33.2    Pricing Strategy for Product

What is the product strategy of an organization, and how does it affect the design of the product? Surveys in industry, by use of questionnaires and interaction with executives of manufacturing firms, have revealed that there is no such common policy for all organizations.

a)         Pricing Strategy for Product

As an example of pricing strategy, one large chain of departmental stores aims at offering commodities to the public at a minimum price, whatever be the quality. In fact, one may be quite sure that articles bought at these stores cannot be obtained cheaper or even at the same price elsewhere. The company bases this policy on the assumption that the type of goods it offers need not have a very long life and that, if sold cheaply enough, the volume of sales is likely to be very large, so that even a very marginal profit per unit will lead to substantial gains. This strategy is termed pricing strategy.

b)        Product Quality Strategy

Other manufacturers (e.g. the aircraft industry and many precision instrument makers) define their aim as high qualify, whatever be the cost. The Chairman of Bajaj Auto Ltd. has recently expressed that for his company, product quality is the secret of success for over the last three decades. The high quality is manifested in minimal maintenance, high reliability and ergonomic superiority of the Bajaj scooter for Indian conditions. Similarly, LML Vespa and Kinetic Honda have been able to capture substantial market share due to their superior product quality.

c)         Product luxuriousness strategy

In some cases, luxury and comfort are the prime considerations that cost becomes secondary. For example, Rolls Royce. However, in others, precision and prestige play an important part, for instance, Mercedes, BMW and Toyota. The manufacturers of these automobiles produce luxurious models (of course, Toyota has several popular models besides the luxury models), but the number produced is not very large, and in spite of the high price of the finished product, the firm cannot expect to get high profits from this line of production alone.

d)        Product Utility Strategy

Other automobile firms like Monto aim at large volume production of a low-priced car that will compete with more expensive models' (Esteem) by having .some of their successful and popular features and innovations. Most companies, however, say they aim at striking a satisfactory balance between very high quality and a reasonable price. Others go further and try to improve this balance in favour of the customer, by improving quality and leaving the price unchanged or by improving production methods and offering the same quality at a reduced price.

e)         Time to market

The importance of product development and design for long-range planning by management is further emphasized by the amount of time that elapses from . the inception of the idea for the new design until production starts.

33.3    Analysis of the product

Many factors have to be analyzed in relation to development and design factors which vary in character and complexity, and factors related to different fields in production and industrial engineering. Some of these may be grouped as follows:       

• Marketing aspect
• Product characteristics
• Functional aspect
• Operational aspect
• Durability and dependability aspects
• Aesthetic aspect
• Economic analysis
• Profit consideration
• Effect of standardization, simplification and specialization (c) Break-even analysis
• Production aspects.

All these factors are interrelated and each presents many issues that have to be carefully considered. Market research may guide product designers in their work to improve existing products or to develop new ones. The design and its characteristics have to undergo an economic analysis and must be researched in the light of available production facilities and techniques. A costing analysis is naturally dependent on the sales volume; hence the proposed design has to be re-evaluated by market research so that a sales projection can be done. This expected sales volume provides the basis for a further study from the production methods aspect, and the economic analyses have to be rechecked and perhaps modified. Thus product development and design is an excellent example of interdependence of a multitude of factors that have to be unified and integrated into a final composition

33.4    Basic design considerations

Let us assume that a five-year product plan has been established. There are still major factors which the designer must consider before he puts pencil to sketch pad:

(a)  Convenience of use

(b)  Maintenance

(c)  Costs

(d)  Sales

(e)  Appearance.

a)            Convenience of use.

No matter what the product is, convenience is of primary importance. Whether the customer or user is a housewife with a hair-dryer or an engineer driving a limousine, it is the designer's primary objective to make the product desirable through its utility. In determining the proper approach, he has several sources from which he may seek assistance. These sources are now described.

(a)  It is always possible for marketing research people to find out what the customer dislikes about the company's previous models. Returned warranty cards and field reports from dealers and sales representatives are good sources of information.

(b)  Customer surveys may be conducted by making working models and pre-testing potential users. This is, of course, a costly method whose value is sometimes questionable. Both the automobile industry, through its experimental car models, and appliance manufacturers, through their "kitchens of the future", use this. approach to elicit public reaction.

(c)  The least costly and the most commonly used approach is common sense.

b)        Maintenance:

 Ease of maintenance and life of parts are important factors. It is the customer who ultimately benefits from proper consideration in this area, and the designer must be careful to resist the temptation of designing primarily to please the service personnel. It cannot be repeated too often that the customer must always come first in the designer's thinking.

c)         Cost:

 Although cost certainly cannot be ignored, it should not be the overriding consideration in all cases. The lowest-priced item does not necessarily out-sell the highest-priced, as the automobile industry offers ample evidence.

If the only consideration was cost, we would still be using the hand crank handle instead of the automatic starter, and the manual shift instead of the automatic transmission. Here again, it is the customer who must ultimately decide how much the product is worth.

d)        Sales:

We must know the volume of sales anticipated, the competition that will be encountered, what the competitors are offering, and what we plan to offer. With regard' to sales, it will be better to remember that maximum efficiency and good performance do not necessarily help in selling the product. Again, as an example, the first automatic washing machines did not wash clothes as clean as the wringer-type, yet they were sold in great quantity. A good number of men use electric razors, even though these razors cannot give as good a shave as the safety razors. Like all the rest, people prefer convenience; and this seems to be the overriding consideration in the motivation of most sales today.

e)         Appearance:

Appearance should not be underestimated, for it determines the whole "character" of the product. It should reflect pride of ownership, the function served, high product quality and value, and the reputation of the maker.

33.5    Procedure adopted by industrial designers

Knowing the type of design problem being considered, the designer can now proceed. Quite briefly, the various stages of design are:

1. Rough sketches and colour renderings

2. Detail drawings (full size)

      3. Three-dimensional models in clay, plaster, wood, metal or plastic (all actual materials to be finally specified). These models are evaluated, improved and revised. New models are made and then presented to management for evaluation and approval.

Through all these design stages, the design group work very closely with the engineering staff. Several versions of the final product will be carried along in the early stages, but these will be narrowed down as the programme progresses. In many cases, two and possibly three widely diverse designs may be presented for management's approval. Management should not be asked whether or not it personally prefers the red or the maroon nameplate, the round or the elongated handle; it is, after all, the customer who is to be pleased. Management should have confidence in the design specialists it has employed to make such decisions. Designers should be satisfying not the management but the market.

Good designers are in constant touch with all aspects of art and industry, through publications, visits, technical meetings, seminars, panel discussions and the like. In this way, they keep abreast of new techniques, materials, finishes, and processes as they appear in the market. They watch closely the trends in the allied fields of architecture, fine arts, and craft. And speaking of trends, they are responsible for establishing many by themselves. Every new trend, after all, had to be started by someone who was not satisfied with the established way. The industrial designed probably the most dissatisfied person in industry today, because he does not consider the existing product is ultimate in quality on designs. We should be thankful that this is so, for as soon as we say, "This is the ultimate", and we have stopped progressing. Once a new product actually appears, no matter how well it may impress others, it is not unusual to find its designer lacking in enthusiasm, simply because he has thought of half a dozen new and better ways to make it. Dissatisfaction is probably the only thing that brings changes in the design business.

33.5.1 Types of models designed by industrial designers

The types of models usually met with in the development of the product or a line of products are: Clay studies, mock-ups, scale models, and prototypes. These are now briefly described.

a)         Clay studies:

These are made full size or to a smaller scale by the designer himself, not his understudy. These are valuable in the study of form relationships, e.g. Is the base too small for the superstructure of subtitles, of curvature and camber, of size, of radii and fillets, and so on? Though primarily intended for form analysis, these can be of great help later in discussions with tool and die engineers in the final stages of the project.

b)        Mock-ups:

This is a proven and old technique in model-making. It involves making a false model to simulate the real product or prototypes. It is made in wood or plaster instead of, say, cast iron or plastics. The mock-up has to be painted in suitable metallic or other paint to create an impression of the actual future product. There is a trend now-a-days of designing for ease of operation, i.e., ergonomic design. The person who is to use the product is looked upon as an object needing space, user of physical effort, sensor or observer and finally, controller of the product. The latest trends in mock-ups simulate human mannequins on the CAD terminal and determine "Space requirement envelope" of the dummy, check up how man and machine fit, and carry out a stress analysis on the dummy, should an accident occur. These methods help build better and user friendly designs through interactive computer graphics and animation. The latest trend in "mock-up" is to use CAD instead of plaster of paris or wood mock-ups.

c)         Scale models:

These are favoured when a material, which can take a very good finish is available, this is not possible in clay modeling. Plaster is the commonest material for scale models.

d)        Prototypes:

It is a full size model of the real product, but is seldom made by the designer. Before going into large scale production of any major product, an operating or working model has to be built, exact in every minute detail, inside and outside. Prototypes are costly in terms of labour but are essential before going for mass production. Nowadays, computer simulation is widely used for testing a final design. A prototype is still the best technique to improve the level of confidence of the designer for new products.

33.6    Rapid Prototyping:

Since the middle of the last decade, a silent revolution has been taking place in the field of manufacturing. As a result, a host of new manufacturing techniques have been developed using which it is possible to produce a solid object with the required shape, size, and accuracy directly from its computer model. Though at present such techniques of direct shape ­generation are being applied primarily for rapid prototype development, it is firmly believed by many that the age-old concepts and methods will gradually be replaced by these techniques in the actual manufacture of shaped articles and components as also spare part production. Most of the generative manufacturing machines, commonly known as rapid prototyping machines, are still in the developing stage. A few such as stereolithography, selective laser sintering, solid ground curing, fused deposition modelling, and laminated object manufacturing are now commercially available and are being used by many industries for rapid prototyping.

33.7    Manufacturing:

The conversion of resource into raw materials is normally done by two subdisciplines of engineering: mining and metallurgy. The real shaping starts from the stage a material is available in raw form. Changing a raw material into a final product generally involves various processes. The major processes a component undergoes before it is converted into a final product are:

1. Casting: primary and secondary forming,

2. Machining,

3. Joining: assembly and finishing.

A material is often subjected to primary forming for producing standard shapes such as those of rods, bars and sheets. However, it may also undergo secondary forming, and this is performed when the objective is to obtain a shape other than the standard shapes. The three engineering activities that require an understanding of the production processes are (i) designing, (ii) production, and (iii) development of new techniques. At the design stage, manufacturing considerations have to be taken into account, not only for producing the part in the most economical manner, but also for imparting to the part some required properties such as strength and hardness. Besides, in the production shop, a successful engineer must have a thorough understanding of the subject if he has to select and implement the right processes. The selection of the important process parameters is extremely important to achieve success in manufacturing. The third type activity is development of new manufacturing processes and modification of the existing technology. It has already been mentioned that the production engineers are facing more and more challenging problems, and often such problems cannot be solved with the help of existing conventional methods. Thus, a variety of new processes have evolved during the last two decades. The product to be manufactured and ready for inspection. After the inspection, now it is ready for launching.

33.8    Quality of performance.

 How well a product performs in tough environmental conditions is determined by the following metrics of product quality:

1. Reliability: It is the probability that a product shall perform the assigned function for a time termed mission time.
2. Maintainability: It is the probability that a product can be maintained and brought back to working condition in the shortest service time. The Japanese take another view of maintainability: they address design as maintenance prevention (or MP) design. An MP design is one in which modularity is incorporated so that, if a certain module of the design system fails, instead of repairing, it is substituted by a stand-by module.
3. Availability: Availability of a design is the multiple of reliability and maintainability.

Theory of sampling inspection

Sampling inspection is carried out for assessing quality of incoming raw materials and quality of finished goods in stores.

Sampling plans are used for checking the quality of the material before and after production.

A single random sample of a predetermined size (n) is taken, each of the units in the sarnple is inspected, and at the end of the inspection, the number of defective (x) found is noted. If this is less than or equal to a stated (acceptance) number (c), then the lot is accepted; otherwise. if there are more than c defectives in the sample), the lot is rejected. Note that the decision to accept or reject refers to the lot and not to the sample. The sample is only an aid to make the decision.

33.9    Test marketing:

The important phase in the development cycle called “test marketing” consists of small-scale tests with customers. Until this stage, the idea and the product have been tested in a somewhat artificial context. At this stage, the appeal of the product is tested amidst the mix of activities comprising the market launch. That is salesmanship, advertising, sales promotion, distributor incentives and public relations. The objectives of test marketing are

1. Find out the consumer needs of buying
2. Evaluate impact of local advertising and promotion during the test
3. Evaluate the market potential for other competing products
4. Find out the area coverage for sales
5. Find the consumers ability to buy the product based on price.

33.10  Commercialization or launch.

This is the final stage of the initial development process and is very costly. It involves decision making on issues such as when to launch the product, where to launch it, how and to whom to launch. It is based on information collected throughout the development process. With regard to timing, important considerations include:

1. Seasonality of the product

2. Whether the launch should fit any trade or commercial event

 3. Whether the new product is a replacement for the old one.

Location for large companies describes the number of countries in which the product will be launched and whether national launches need be simultaneous or they need to roll out from one country to another. For smaller companies, the decision is restricted to a narrower geographical region. The factors upon which such decisions are based, depend upon the required lead-times for product to reach all the distributive outlets and the relative power and influence of channel members. Launch strategy encompasses any advertising and trade promotions necessary. Space must be booked, copy and visual material prepared, both for the launch proper and for the pre-sales into the distribution pipeline. The sales force may require extra training in order to sell the new product effectively.

Methods of launching:

(i)            Immediate national launch: This is one way to overcome the competition and to save on the cost of launch. The risk of national launch is that it leaves the company with many problems, which were not contemplated during the test marketing. Production routines that work well in theory may not result as expected. Early problems of supply may create problems during actual launch.

(ii)          Rolling launch: This is an alternative to the full national launch. It involves building towards full national coverage by starting with one or two recognized distribution areas, then gradually adding new regions to those already served as experience and success of the product further increases. This helps the company to concentrate on getting the logistics and production schedules in tune with the requirements. Coca Cola, Kelloggs, and several other major players including HLL use this strategy effectively.

33.11  An overview of new product development process:

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