New Product Development

Management

NPDM 5

Mohsen SADEGHI

Department of Graduate School of Management and Economics

Sharif University of Technology

Concept Generation

Concept Generation Example:

Power Nailer

• What existing solution concepts, if any, could be

successfully adapted for this application?

• What new concepts might satisfy the established needs and

specifications?

• What methods can be used to facilitate the concept

generation process?

Concept Development Process

The Activity of Concept Generation

• A good concept is sometimes poorly implemented in

subsequent development phases, but a poor concept can

rarely be manipulated to achieve commercial success.

• Concept generation typically consumes less than 5%

budget and 15% of the development time

• Because the concept genaration activity is not costly, there

is no excuse for lack of diligence and care in executing

asound concept generation method.

Preliminary questions

• After identifying customer needs and establishing target

product specifications, the team should ask:

– What existing solutions could be adapted for this

application?

– What new concepts might satisfy these needs and

specifications?

– What methods can be used to facilitate concept

generation process?

Concept generation activity

• Structured approaches reduce the likelihood of costly

problems

– Common dysfunctions during concept generation:

• Consideration of only one or two alternatives, often

proposed by the most assertive members of the team.

• Failure to consider carefully the usefulness of concepts

employed by other firms in related and unrelated products.

• Involvement of only one or two people in the process,

resulting in lack of confidence and commitment by other

team members.

• Ineffective integration of promising partial solutions.

• Failure to consider entire categories of solutions.

A Five-Step Method

• Step 1: Clarify the Problem

• Step 2: Search Externally

• Step 3: Search Internally

• Step 4: Explore Systematically

• Step 5: Reflect on the Results and the Process

Concept Generation Process

The nailer: Step 1

• Review assumptions underlying mission statement

• The nailer will:

– use nails (as opposed to adhesives, screws etc.).

– be compatible with nail magazines on existing tools.

– nail into wood.

– be hand-held.

Customer needs

Customer needs (for a hand-held nailer):

• The nailer inserts nails in rapid succession.

• The nailer works into tight spaces

• The nailer is lightweight.

• The nailer has no noticeable nailing delay after tripping

tool.

Target specifications

• No noticeable nailing delay after pulling trigger

• Nail lengths from 25 to 38 mm.

• Maximum nailing energy of 40 J/nail.

• Nailing force of up to 2,000 N.

• Peak nailing rate of 12 nails/second.

• Average nailing rate of 4 nails/min.

• Maximum trigger delay of 0.25 second.

• Tool mass less than 4 kg

• Maximum trigger delay of 0.25 sec.

Problem decomposition

• Decompose complex problem into simpler sub-problems.

Many design challenges are too complex to solve as a

single problem.

• Split a complex problem into simpler subproblems.

( Problem decomposition)

• Split system into modules

– Examples:

– document copier (Document handler, Paper feeder,

Image capture device, Printing device)

• Many schemes

– Functional decomposition

Problem Decomposition:

Function Diagram

Some useful tips to get started

• Create a function diagram of an existing product.

• Create function diagram based on an arbitrary product

concept already generated by the team or on a known

subfunction technology. Be sure to generalize the diagram

to the appropriate level of abstraction.

• Follow one of the flows (e.g., materials) and determine what

operations are required. The details of the other flows can

be derived by thinking about their connections to the initial

flow.

Two other approaches

• Decomposition by sequence of user actions.

– Move tool to approximate nailing position,

– Position tool precisely,

– Pull trigger.

• Decomposition by key customer needs

– Fires nails in rapid succession,

– Fits in tight places,

– Has large nail capacity.

Focus on critical sub-problems

• The aim of decomposition techniques is to split a complex

problem into simpler subproblems, then tackle each in a

focused way.

The Nailer:

Step 2 - Search externally

• Conduct external searches to find existing solutions to

either the overall problem or a sub-problem identified

during the decomposition step.

• Use search engines (in advanced mode) to find existing

solutions discussed on Internet sites.

External and Internet Searches:

Hints for finding related solutions

• Lead Users

– see emerging needs before

others

– adopt and generate

innovations first

• Benchmarking

– competitive products

• Experts

– technical experts

– experienced customers

• Patents

– search related inventions

• Literature

– technical journals

– conference proceedings

– trade literature

– government reports

– consumer information

Patents

• Try the European patent office

– http://ep.espacenet.com

• US patent office

– http://patft.uspto.gov

Step 3 - Search internally

• Suspend judgment

– Suspend evaluation for the days or weeks required to

generate a large set of alternatives is critical to success.

• Generate a lot of ideas

– Most experts believe that the more ideas a team

generates, the more likely the team is to explore fully

the ‘solution space’.

Step 3 - Search internally (cont)

• Welcome ideas, even if they do not seem very feasible

– Ideas which initially appear infeasible can often be

improved, “debugged” or “repaired” by other members

of the team.

• Use graphical and physical media.

– Reasoning about physical and geometric information

with words is difficult.

Hints for Generating Solution Concepts

• Make analogies

– Experienced designers always ask themselves what

other devices solve a related problem.

• Wish and wonder

– Beginning a thought or comment with “I wish we

could.....” or “I wonder what would happen if ....” helps

to stimulate oneself or the group to consider new

possibilities

Hints (cont)

• Use related stimuli

– Most individuals can think of a new idea when presented

with a new stimulus.

• Use unrelated stimuli

– Occasionally, random or unrelated stimuli can be

effective in encouraging new ideas.

• Set quantitative goals

– Set a goal of 10 or 20 concepts.

• Use the gallery method

– Use the gallery method to display a large number of

concepts simultaneously for discussion.

TRIZ

• In the 1990’s, a Russian problem solving methodology

called TRIZ (a Russian acronym for theory of inventive

problem solving) began to disseminate in Europe and USA.

• Useful in identifying physical working principles.

• The key idea is to identify a contradiction that is implicit in

a problem.

Solutions for two of the

nailer’s subproblems

The nailer:

Step 4 - Explore systematically

• After external and internal search there are probably tens or

hundreds of solutions to subproblems, or concept

fragments

• Navigate the space of possibilities…

– With the concept classification tree

– With the concept combination table

Concept classification tree

Use it to:

• Prune less promising branches

(carefully)

• Identify related versus

independent approaches

• Highlight inappropriate

emphasis (certain branches)

• Refine problem

decomposition.

Refining problem decomposition

• Too much instantaneous power (~10000Watt) for an outlet,

battery or fuel cell to deliver in few miliseconds

– Must accumulate and then trigger

Concept combination table

• A systematic approach to combine partial solutions

Managing the exploration process

• Combination tables and classification trees are not unique

– Just simple ways to organize thoughts

– Exploration step acts as a guide for further creative

thinking

• Often the concept generation phase is not so

straightforward

– In fact its almost always iterative...

Step 5: Reflect on the Results and

the Process

• Is the team developing confidence that the solution space

has been fully explored?

• Are there alternative function diagrams?

• Are there alternative ways to decompose the problem?

• Have external sources been thoroughly pursued?

• Have ideas from everyone been accepted and integrated

into process?

Summary

• A product concept is an approximate description of the

technology, working principles, and form of the product.

• The concept generation begins with a set of customer

needs and target specifications.

• In most cases an effective team will generate hundreds of

concepts, of which 5 to 20 will merit serious consideration.