The Product Development Processes - Assignment Example

The Product Development Processes The product development processes selected is a key factor for the success of that particular product in market. “A fundamental problem in managing product development is the optimal timing, frequency, and fidelity of sequential testing activities that are carried out to evaluate novel product concepts and designs.” (Thomke & Bell 2001, p.308). The manufacturing of various products can be carried out in different methods of approach. Simultaneous and consecutive procedures are being developed to meet the requirements of the production companies. The many factors like time, cost, efficiency etc are considered while selecting a method of production. The sequential development method is a consecutive action accomplishing process of production while Concurrent Engineering meets the requirement of simultaneous development of the product. Concurrent Engineering can be defined as “the simultaneous design of products and related processes, including all product life-cycle aspects such as manufacturing, assembly, test, support, disposal, and recycling.” (Concurrent engineering 2009). This is a methodical advancement towards the development of products. The various steps of development are carried out concurrently thereby reducing the pass time. The design, manufacture, test and market engineering are made to work in parallel so as to increase the throughput as well as the efficiency of production. The philosophy of concurrent engineering is the key for its victory in the production field of this modern age. In this, the entire actions to be carried out during the overall process of development are determined and analysed simultaneously in the design period itself. All the activities are launched at the same time, so that zero transportation delay and cost occur in between the works. Effective planning is the important requirement for the success of the product launch when the product development is concerned. This is achieved to the maximum extent in the Concurrent Engineering method of product prototyping. “The concurrent engineering approach is based on five key elements: a process a multidisciplinary team an integrated design model a facility a software infrastructure.” (Feature: what is concurrent engineering 2004). The concurrent method requires a procedure to be carried out which is the basis for all further steps to be done. A team with executives from all the fields of production criteria is essential for efficient prototyping. An incorporation of the activities from all strata in the production process resulting in a plan for the accomplishment of the required process has to be completed. The model deduced helps in identifying the skills and amenities required for working the action plan. The software communications are also vital in this case. The sequential product development process is usually known as Waterfall method. “In the traditional development, each of the four logical groups occurs sequentially.” (Kamrani & Salhieh 2002, p.4). The logical groups are research and marketing, planning, scheduling the course of action and manufacturing. These groups are working in a sequential order to accomplish the required production result. The traditionally accepted product development method uses a stepwise execution of activities. Each group will be dependent on the group just above them and should wait for the activity of the previous group to get completed before they start. “A classically linear and sequential approach to software design and systems development, each waterfall stage is assigned to a separate team to ensure greater project and deadline control, important for on-time project delivery.” (Agilecollab n.d.). The output of each logical group is given as input to the next stage. The research results in the ideas of new products which could be marketed successfully. These ideas are sent to the development department for the expansion of the output of market analysis and research. The extended concepts are input to the designing group whose output always is an action plan for the manufacturing department. The following diagram shows the sequential product development process. (What kind of software process exist n.d.). The evaluation of the Concurrent Engineering and sequential product development process leads to the comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of those developmental procedures. The pass or execution time is a main factor distinguishing them. The execution time for the sequential developmental process is higher compared to the concurrent engineering method. This is due to the fact that each stage has to wait for the output from the preceding logical group. The concurrent engineering eliminates the requirement of designing an already designed plan. As a result of these advantages the cost of manufacturing becomes much lesser in the case of concurrent engineering procedure, compared to the traditional sequential development process or Waterfall method. The quality of the product will be better in the case of concurrent engineering design procedure because the plan is developed by a team with executives from all the departments of production process so that the deduced plan will be the best one for that particular product. This results in the effective marketing of the product and thus leads to better profit for the manufacturers when compared to the traditional Waterfall method. The use of Concurrent Engineering method exhibits the maximum utilization of human resources unlike the traditional sequential development procedure. “Concurrent engineering is a new and flexible way of developing products that allows the company to gather information from all the parties including the customers and dealers to concurrently design, build and market as one process.” (The advantages concurrent engineering 2004). The usage of Concurrent Engineering in the real life practice has taken a flourish in the production scenario during recent years. Many companies in USA have absorbed concurrent engineering in the production industries resulting in benefits in cost and profit, leading to success in product launch. Concurrent engineering replaces the traditional product development process where the jobs are done in parallel. It concentrates on the distribution of the company’s resources used in the design and development process. It helps in the development of the products efficiently. Today, the business market is changing day by day. More and more products are being introduced in the market daily. This increases the competition in the market. Thus the business organizations will have to face competition from their competitors. The companies that produce the best products can make good profits and thus survive in the market. The companies should produce the products according to the needs of the customers. The companies must respond effectively to the changing market. They must take decisions at the right time and all the decisions should be implemented quickly. Concurrent engineering helps in finding fast solutions to the design and development process. It focuses on development of high quality and low-cost products. The development of such products can easily be marketable because the people will prefer such high quality low cost products. The process of concurrent engineering must be done in the beginning stage of the project itself, because the costs of the products are estimated at this stage. Companies of any type can benefit from concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering process deals with the delivering of goods to the customer. Internal and external techniques are used in this process. Designing and manufacturing are the internal processes and marketing is the external process. There is interaction of manufacturing and marketing with the designing of the products. “Some firms are practicing concurrent engineering to minimize the conflict between design and manufacturing departments.” (Mukhopadhyay & Gupta 1998). Concurrent engineering reduces the design time of the products. In the traditional engineering process, a large amount of time was spent for defining and designing the product. It thus wastes a lot of time. Concurrent engineering solves this problem because it requires less design time. Also, better and cheaper products that can be brought to the market faster are designed. Thus, concurrent engineering made the design and development process more efficient than the traditional engineering process. The design of a product is not an easy task. For designing even a simple product, many steps will have to be performed. If the design process is performed by more number of people it can become more complex. The design process requires a team of experts who may be from various fields like engineering, manufacturing etc. All of them work together for the development of the required product. The team should have one person as the team leader. The team leader manages all the functions of the team. He has to control the whole team and provide instructions on how the design is to be made. Thus, teamwork is very essential in concurrent engineering. A product that is designed for manufacturing is designed such that the numbers of parts are less and the parts are easy to handle and fabricate. Concurrent engineering helps the manufacturers in product development and the delivery of the products to the market faster. “Marketing, engineering, manufacturing, purchasing and accounting are among the sectors working together from product conception to delivery to avoid product delays and failures, to keep total cost down and to assure reliable supply of parts and materials.” (Reddy etal 1991). Concurrent engineering decreases the requirement of redesigning a product. They design product by studying the factors that make that product marketable and try to make that product with all those factors. The companies should be aware of the market and the development team should work together for developing the products that are needed for the market. The processes of design, manufacturing and marketing are closely related in business. If the design process is done properly, the manufacturing process will be easier and if the product manufactured is of good quality, it will have a good market. If the designing of a product is good, it will reduce the manufacturing cost. Marketing in concurrent engineering defines a need and the manufacturing process takes a concept from the engineering process and makes the product. The design needed for a product can be understood by market research. Market research helps the designer to understand what the customer wants. The product is designed according to the requirements of the customer and it should satisfy the customer. Concurrent engineering develops a product by gathering information from many people like customers, dealers etc. Here the manufacturing and design teams do their works simultaneously. The employees need to have good communication with each other. The concurrent engineering process serves the customers of a company better because it reduces the product cycle time. Concurrent engineering facilitates the experts of other organizations in the supply chain. It needs the trust of the external people. The success of a business will depend on the integration of the suppliers. The supply chain will depend on the design and delivery of the products. The integration of design is done by using concurrent engineering tools. Using these tools the manufacturers can reduce the time and cost. “Concurrent engineering (CE) stresses cross-functional integration and simultaneous development of a product and its associated processes.” (Pun etal 2003) It promotes the collaboration of business with partners. It also helps a company to build a product at a faster rate and also to modify its existing products. Thus, the design, manufacturing and marketing in a business process are interrelated. As concurrent engineering is the new technique in the management of product development, it helped a lot in the success of the business mainly by reducing the time required to manufacture a product. The main aim of applying concurrent engineering in a production process is to progress the quality of the product at low cost. The concurrent engineering method includes different product prototyping techniques in order to build up a product more effectively and successfully. The first stage in concurrent engineering is design process, then conceptual design, concept evaluation, solid modeling and virtual engineering and so on. Design stage is the first step in the production process even though it is considered as minor step in the development of a product. Various tools and approaches are used to design a product but the quality of the product cannot be estimated at this stage of design. It is done by group of qualified and efficient designers; thus it helps in getting the ideas of many designers. Next is the conceptual design stage in which various activities are included and they are “task definition, requirement specification, principle solution generation and conceptual model realism. Possible ideas or combinations, partial or global are in general, represented as diagrams and sketches that translate the designers intents and which include all the information needed for the development of the next design phase.” (Moustapha 2006, p.253). In the conceptual design stage the developer will analyze the requirement for the production through interview or face to face meeting with the customer; then only the developer can understand what the drawback is and how to bring to success. Then, the developer will develop the product according the need of the customer with limited amount of resources and with a reduction of time. As various soft wares are developed for assessing the task in the conceptual design process, it helps to do the work very rapidly and accurately. Next stage in this process is concept evaluation which is done only after all the designing process is completed. In this stage, the cost, techniques, resources needed for developing a product etc are decided and one of the main things focused in this stage is shortening the elapsed time required for producing a product. After finishing the concept evaluation, next is solid modeling, that is, creating the model of the product that is required to be developed. Only after the model is a success, the original product will be manufactured and this is done in order to augment the confidence of the developers so that they can go directly to the production process without any hesitation. This solid model exposed is collected, basically of two phases “The first is a “pass-fail” assessment, where possible solutions are checked against the initial specifications. Only those matching the requirements will proceed to the next step, which intends to rank the alternatives in order to define the one that has the best potential to become a successful product.” (Moustapha 2006, p.255). Only when the customer is satisfied with the model, the developer will continue the process. Next and the final step is the virtual prototyping which means it “is a computer controlled environment that responds to user interaction, allowing visualizing and manipulation of virtual modes. Basically the CE system is composed of reality engine (computer system, external hardware), input/output device, software and geometry.” (Moustapha 2006, p.256). By using this virtual package the developer can create a 3D model of the product instead of three dimensional model of the CAD package which helps them for visualizing and considering the product model. This virtual prototyping helps in saving the time when compared to other physical prototyping. Only after satisfaction of this, the developer will lead to a conclusion i.e. whether the product has to be developed in this model or not. When the developer and customer are satisfied with this model, then they will continue the next process that is production side. Behind the designing stage, it is production side in which more time and concentration are required; then only the production process can be done smoothly without any risk. So, this concurrent engineering helps many business not only in saving the time required for production but also helps in the success of the business by increasing the quality and quantity of the product. Now, most of the business sectors are following this concurrent engineering in the manufacturing of their product. In the present competitive market condition, in order to survive, a business needs high quality product at favorable price; then only there will be demand for its product in the market. For the existence of any business in the market, whether it is big or small, they should provide excellent products according to the need of the customer. Concurrent engineering helps in the distributed product development and desirable designing of the product; hence the business can survive in any changing business environment. In the concurrent engineering method, the developer develops the product only after knowing the need of the customer. It helps in reducing the wastage of the resources. Some businesses follow the traditional engineering method even now, spending long time for designing and manufacturing the product. Therefore, a developing business can prosper if it follows the concurrent engineering process which spends only a short time for the development of a product. Concurrent Engineering (Simultaneous Engineering or Integrated Product Development (IPD)) mainly aims the improvement of the product performance. The main advantage of using CE approach is that it reduces product design complexity, development cost and development time. The CE is widely used in many of the industrial sectors, companies and some of the product development areas because of its systematic nature. The application of CE is mainly established in areas such as General Electric's Aircraft Engines Division's approach for their new engine design named as F/A-18E/F. This engine is used for various designing and development process. By using this method, designers can reduce the designing and the component test time which can lead to entire engine testing. It is more efficient than the usual development process. Another example which uses concurrent engineering is Boeing's Ballistic Systems Division. In “Boeing's Ballistic Systems Division where Concurrent Engineering was used in 1988 to develop a mobile launcher for the MX missile and was able to reduce design time by 40% and cost by 10% in building the prototype.” (A words about concurrent engineering 1998). Concurrent Engineering is widely used in space mission assessment and designing of European space agency. The space system components are related to each other. Therefore, complete details of each component, how the components of the space craft system relate to other components and how the change of the components will affect the entire system will be required for each of the proper functioning of the space craft system. Based on the concurrent engineering design strategy of the space system components a conceptual model is developed to get the easy solution for the above problem. “The design process is conducted in a number of sessions in which all specialists must participate. It is a process that addresses all aspects of the system design in a quick and complete fashion. The simultaneous participation of all of the specialists reduces the risk of incorrect or conflicting design assumptions, as each major decision is debated and agreed collectively.” (Bandecchi, Melton & Ongaro 1999, p.2). The 777 jet of Boeing uses the concept of concurrent engineering working together concept. Throughout the development process, several members are involved in several teams. The various teams involved in this process are designing teams, manufacturing teams and so on. The development of a jet plane requires a long period and perfect planning. That is why they use concurrent engineering concept, which acts as a suitable method for the development process. Concurrent engineering concept is used in various other space organizations such as NASA, French Space agency, Italian space agency, German aerospace centers etc. One of the products which are based on Concurrent Engineering approach is the Polaroid Corp.'s Captiva instant camera. With this, it can do several works simultaneously. In the designing of electric fan, integrated concurrent engineering concept is used. For the designing of a new electric fan designers must have the idea about the requirement of the customers and design the product based on that requirement. For that, concurrent engineering concept is used. In addition to that, designers mainly aim its quality, efficiency, and the production time. In this method, according to the needs of the customer a chart is formed and from that we have achieved a final design concept by Pugh concept selection matrix. “The optimal assembly sequence is obtained by integrating the techniques of design for assembly (DFA), liaison-sequence analysis, establishment of subassemblies, and comparing the required reorientation numbers of parts and difficulties of assemblies based on some criteria and constraints by using a computer program constructed in this study.” (Hsiao 1999). By using this systematic process, development engineers can reduce the complexity of the product design and then they can improve the quality and efficiency of the product. Concurrent engineering concept is used in various other applications, such as, the designing of new automobile systems. Various companies use the concurrent engineering concept because of its systematic approach, its performance, reduced cost, quality of products, reduction in time etc. In the book ‘Engineering and Technology Management Tools and its application’, the author mentions some of the US companies which use the concurrent engineering concepts. They are “Hewlett-Packard: institution division, Northrop, AT&T, IBM, McDonnell Douglas, Deere and Company, Boeing Ballistic Systems Division NCR, Cisco Systems, Texas instruments.” (Dhillon 2002, p.188). In addition to that, various seafood companies can use the systematic approach of concurrent engineering concept. By using this CE concept, the firms can reduce the implementation risk, its complexity of designs, product cost etc. The analysis on fundamental philosophy and content of Concurrent Engineering and Sequential Product Development Process is carried out. The advantages and disadvantages are sought out in detail, to conclude with the best method as Concurrent Engineering. The business strategy of design, manufacture and marketing relationships are studied in the Concurrent Engineering approach of product development. The prototyping technologies in the design of the product pose a real impact on the development of Concurrent Engineering in the business sector. Thus, a flourish in the production field has been revealed by the extensive application of Concurrent Engineering method. Reference List Agilecollab n.d., Waterfall vs. Agile methodology: waterfall, Agile Introduction for Dummies. Available from: http://agileintro.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/waterfall-vs-agile-methodology/ [Accessed 6 October 2009]. A word about concurrent engineering 1998, John Stark Associates, Available from: http://www.johnstark.com/fwcce.html [Accessed 6 October 2009]. 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Available from: http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://www.software-development-resource.com/images/waterfall_software_process.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.software-development-resource.com/software-process-types.html&h=259&w=342&sz=6&tbnid=5Jgvazprxfo1YM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwaterfall%2Bmethod&hl=en&usg=__lmNckcR_L3yIGanxBr5I-fUHBnQ=&ei=wZDJSuLbEaWRtgfL-KGxDw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image [Accessed 6 October 2009]. Read More