Product Design Process
The Product Design Process is a very critical component of a product manufacturing cycle. The product design process influences the product development to a large scale. Conventionally, the product design process is a step by step implementation of certain aspects of a design process with the output of one stage carrying over as the input to the other.
What are the steps in a Product Design Process?
- Design Brief - Every manufacturing process design or industrial process design starts with a design brief. The design brief documents the purpose of the design process. For example if a manufacturing company wishes to develop racing cars, the design brief should be "We will design a racing car". This one statement is not enough to start a design process in itself but it gives a direction for the design process.
- Product Design Specification - This is one stage which has not quite made impact with product designers. We need to understand that before we arrive at a solution, we understand the problem. Successful designers have attached a lot of importance to finalizing the Product Design Specification (PDS) before proceeding with the design. The PDS summarizes the problem in detail and allows the designer to produce a list of requirements for the product. Successful designers always compare the PDS with the design at various stages to see if the objectives are met.
- Concept Design - With the key components and the arrangement, the designer lays an outline of the product. The key here is not to build the design of the product itself. Conceptual design allows the designer to foresee how his product would be built based on the components and their relation. Designers may come up with different conceptual designs for the same product at this stage.
- Concept Generation and Evaluation - This stage allows designers to build on the conceptual design with new concepts. The new concepts can be acquired by either a brainstorming session or by the knowledge of the designer. Typically, brainstorming sessions are considered very effective for this as a lot of new ideas come up during these sessions. After new concepts are generated, the designers can evaluate the ideas to see which one of them fits the conceptual design framework. A common technique like Matrix Evaluation is used by the designers to evaluate the ideas.
- Detail Design - The designer chooses a design from the combination of concept design and concept generation methods to arrive at the final design framework. The designer adds all dimensions and specifications on the drawing of the design. Some products require prototypes of the product to be produced before manufacturing commences. The designer works closely with the manufacturers and the product design to ensure a prototype is developed as per the product design process.
We can see that a Product Design Process is a closely knit process requiring great deal of coordination between different stages. Successful designers capture this key element of a Product Design Process.