August 23, 2021

Product Development - Introduction

The Book "Product Design and Development" by  Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger

What is a product?
A product is something sold by an enterprise to its customers.

What is product development?
Product development is the set of activities beginning with the perception of a marketing opportunity and ending in the production, sales and delivery of a product.

The success of the product development project is determined by five dimensions.

Product quality
Product cost
Development time
Development cost
Development capability

Who in an organization are involved in new product development?

Main departments or functions involved are: Marketing, Design, and Manufacturing

The Challenges of Product Development

Trade-offs, Dynamics, Details, Time pressure, Economics

Approach of The Book "Product Design and Development" by  Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger

Structured methods
Industrial examples
Organizational realities


Structured Methods

Structured method makes the decision process explicit. It allows everyone to understand the decision rationale. So all people who have to implement the decision will understand and support the decision.

Second, the method given as steps in sequence, provides the checklist for the steps to be done.

The structured method is a self documenting. As the team implements each step and records the output of the step, it develops into a document that can be used during the development of the next product by another team.

Industrial Examples:

The book explains every sub-process with an example of the implementation of it for a product.

Organizational Realities

Some organization may be having practices that make product development ineffective and unsuccessful.

1. Lack of empowerment of the product development team.
2. Functional allegiance of the team members and neglect of project management activities.
3. Inadequate resources
4. Lack of cross-functional representation on the project team.

Ud 24.8.2021
Pub 18.4.2015

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