Associate Professor Karl Ulrich
Wharton
The focus of Product Design and Development is the integration of the marketing, design, and
manufacturing functions of the firm in creating a new product. The course is intended to provide
students with the following benefits:
(1) Competence with a set of tools and methodologies for product design and development.
(2) Confidence in own abilities to create a new product.
(3) Awareness of the role of multiple functions in creating a new product (e.g. marketing, finance,
industrial design, engineering, production).
(4) Ability to coordinate multiple, interdisciplinary tasks in order to achieve a common objective.
(5) Reinforcement of specific knowledge from other courses through practice and reflection in an
action oriented setting.
The course is built around a semester-long project experience. Teams made up of students with backgrounds in engineering, industrial design, and management are expected to identify a target market, design a product to meet the needs of the customers in that market, and produce a physical prototype. Class time is used to present and discuss principles, tools, and methodologies for new product development. Students with strong career interests in product development are especially encouraged to enroll.
Format:
Lectures, case and problem analyses, group presentations.
Requirements:
The development of a new product to the physical prototype stage.
Materials:
K. Ulrich and S. Eppinger, Product Design and Development, McGraw-Hill, 1995.
Introduction Note:
All readings designated as U&E Chapter N are from the course textbook: Product Design and Development by Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger (McGraw-Hill, 1995).
| # | Day | Date | Topic | Due | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M | 1/13 | Introduction | - | |
| 2 | W | 1/15 | Opportunity Identification | - | |
| 3 | M | 1/20 | Project Proposals | Proposal | |
| 4 | W | 1/22 | Customer Needs | - | |
| 5 | M | 1/27 | Project Management I | Mission Statement | |
| 6 | W | 1/29 | Specifications | - | |
| 7 | M | 2/3 | Concept Generation | Needs List | |
| 8 | W | 2/5 | Prototyping | - | |
| 9 | M | 2/10 | Concept Selection | 10 Concepts | |
| 10 | W | 2/12 | Concept Testing | - | |
| 11 | M | 2/17 | Industrial Design I | 3 Concepts | |
| 12 | W | 2/19 | Industrial Design II | - | |
| 13 | M | 2/24 | Human Factors | Final Concept | |
| 14 | W | 2/26 | Product Architecture | - | |
| 15 | M | 3/3 | Peer Review | Presentation/Proto | |
| 16 | W | 3/5 | Cost Modeling | - | |
| 17 | M | 3/17 | Design for Manufacturing | - | |
| 18 | W | 3/19 | Taguchi Methods | - | |
| 19 | M | 3/24 | Project Consulting | - | |
| 20 | W | 3/26 | Financial Modeling | - | |
| 21 | M | 3/31 | Intellectual Property | - | |
| 22 | W | 4/2 | Project Consulting | - | |
| 23 | M | 4/7 | Guest Presentation | - | |
| 24 | W | 4/9 | Environmental Issues | - | |
| 25 | M | 4/14 | Project Management II | - | |
| 26 | W | 4/16 | Final Presentations | - | |
| 27 | M | 4/21 | Final Presentations | - | |
| 28 | W | 4/23 | Final Presentations | - |
COURSE OUTLINE
Monday, January 13
Course Introduction
Read:
General Information U&E Chapters 1 & 2 @issue, Getting a Grip on Kitchen Tools, p. 16-24
Winners: The Best Product Designs of the Year (optional)
This session motivates the importance of product design and development, presents several successful product development efforts, and discusses course and project logistics.
Wednesday, January 15
Opportunity Identification and Evaluation
Read:
U&E Chapters 1 & 2 if you did not do so for Class 1
In this session we will discuss methods for identifying product opportunities. We will consider several contexts: this class, a new venture, and product development within an established firm.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment): Generate a list of 20 product opportunities that interest you generally. Generate a list of 10 product opportunities that satisfy the guidelines for course projects given in the description of the assignment for next class. (Some of these opportunities may be among the 20 generated for question 1.) Identify the five most important criteria you would use to choose a product opportunity to pursue for this course. Briefly evaluate each of your 10 opportunities with respect to these five criteria.
Project Proposals Monday, January 20
Opportunity Proposals
In this session students will each propose a product opportunity to the rest of the class. The details of this assignment are in the Project Schedule and Assignments document. Note especially that your written proposal is due in the morning.
Opportunity proposal due
Customer Needs Wednesday, January 22
Identifying Customer Needs
Read: U&E Chapter 3
In this session we discuss ways of gathering and interpreting data about customer needs. We will spend time in class honing your skills and learning practical techniques related to the basic methodology in Chapter 3.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment):
Ask someone what they like and dislike about a specific product. (This can be very informal, and you need not spend more than 5-10 minutes on this "interview.") Record what they say and interpret the data in terms of customer needs. Complete Exercise 1 at the end of Chapter 3. How would you approach the problem of identifying customer needs for a product with which your target customers have no direct experience? You might consider, for example, products like interactive television or electric vehicles.
Project Management
In deciding what to do and setting up the organization.
Monday, January 27
Read: The Aggregate Project Plan
In this session we discuss common dysfunctions in product development planning and some remedies. Our focus will be on what an organization must do to set the stage for effective project execution. Note that the reading addresses only one aspect of planning; we will treat others in class.
Study Questions (Q1 and Q2 together may be used as an individual assignment):
How can you explain the shape of the curve in Exhibit 4-2? How can you explain the relatively typical situation in which an organization plans on capacity utilizations of almost 300 percent, as illustrated in Exhibit 4-1? What are the possible outcomes for a development organization with such a plan?
Mission statement due
Specifications Wednesday, January 29
Establishing Product Specifications
Read: U&E Chapter 4 A Rocket in its Pocket
In this session we discuss how attributes of a product described only qualitatively can be expressed as a set of product specifications.
Study Questions: Complete exercise 1 in Chapter 4. Respond to Thought Questions 1 and 3 in Chapter 4. Consider the Pilot Organizer development effort as described in the "Rocket" article. What role can/does the specifications process play in this type of success?
Concept Generation Monday, February 3
Read: U&E Chapter 5
In this session we discuss tools, methods, and a few tricks for generating product concepts. As a group we will attempt to generate several patentable concepts for a new product.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment):
Working individually generate 10 concepts for your project. Can you generate 10 more? (How many concepts are there?) Respond to Thought Questions 2 and 5 in Chapter 5.
Customer needs list due
Prototyping Wednesday, February 5
Read: U&E Chapter 10
In this session we will discuss the role of prototyping in a corporate context as well as in the context of your project teams.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment): Construct some kind of prototype (analytical, physical, focused or comprehensive) of one of your product concepts? What questions does this prototype address? (If you use this question for an individual assignment, describe your prototype and/or show it to me in class.) Respond to Thought Questions 1 and 3 in Chapter 10.
Concept Selection Monday, February 10
Read: U&E Chapter 6
This session considers concept selection broadly, then focuses on tools for selection concepts "internally." In the next session we consider how to test concepts in the marketplace.
Study Questions: Complete Exercise 1 in Chapter 6. Respond to Thought Question 4 in Chapter 6.
10 Concepts Due
Concept Testing
Industrial Design I Monday, February 17
Industrial Design I
Read: Braun AG: The KF 40 Coffee Machine (Focus on the KF40 Project beginning on p. 15.) U&E Chapter 8 (at least skim for this session, and read for the next session)
In this session we examine the role of industrial design at Braun AG, particular as it relates to market strategy and to the other development functions.
Study Questions (Q3 and Q4 together may be used as an individual assignment): What is "design" at Braun? What is "visual equity"? List several firms with strong visual equity. Critique Dieter Rams principles of design. Should the Braun team go with the rippled tank? 3 Concepts due.
Industrial Design II Wednesday, February 19
Guest Presentation
In this session we will have a guest presentation by a professional industrial designer. You may find the web sites of some industrial design firms interesting. Links are provided on the course web page.
Human Factors Monday, February 24
Read: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things
In this session we will discuss ergonomics and human factors, with special emphasis on ease of use. Some human factors web sites are linked to the course web page.
Study Questions (Q2 may be used as an individual assignment): Which of Norman's principles (provide a good conceptual model, make things visible, employ natural mappings, provide feedback) apply to your product? Which three products you use regularly do you find most difficult or frustrating to use? Is your difficulty or frustration explained by a violation of NormanÕs principles? Are there other principles that may be important? Final concept due.
Product Architecture Wednesday, February 26
Product Variety, Product Architecture, and Supply Chains
Read: U&E Chapter 7 Sony Electronics Web Site (links provided from course web page)
In this session we discuss the relationship between product architecture and issues of managerial importance, including the management of product variety and the configuration of the supply chain (i.e., the production and distribution system). In addition to amplifying the material in Chapter 7, some recent research results will be presented and discussed.
Study Questions: Complete one of the Exercises at the end of Chapter 7. Respond to Thought Questions 3 and 5. How many models of the Walkman cassette player are displayed in the Sony web site? What are the differences among these models from a customer's perspective? How different do you expect they are from a design perspective? What would you expect Sony's production system to look like?
Peer Review Monday, March 3
Peer Review of Product Concepts
With your team, prepare a 5-minute presentation to describe your selected concept to the class. For more details, refer to the Project Schedule. (However, note that, contrary to what is written in the project schedule, we will meet as one group, and so your presentation should only be five minutes long.)
Peer review presentation and proof-of-concept prototype due.
Cost Modeling Wednesday, March 5
Cost Modeling and Channel Economics
Read: Control Tomorrow's Costs Through Today's Designs
In this session we discuss approaches to cost modeling in the context of new product development. We also briefly discuss the margins in typical distribution channels.
Study Questions (Q3 may be used as an individual assignment): What do you expect to be the stages of the distribution channel for your product? What is the target price of your product? What is the target cost? Prepare a simple cost/price model relating the manufacturing cost of your product to the price the end user will pay, given specific margins at each stage of the channel.
This week you may wish to take a few minutes to complete the assignment for the Intellectual Property session on Monday, March 31. This is because the assignment of procuring a patent can take several calendar days to complete.
Project schedule due.
NOTE: Most of the remaining assignments are due according to your individual team's project schedule.
Design for Manufacturing Monday, March 17
Read: U&E Chapter 9 Manufacturing for Designers (skim for reference only)
In this session we address the relationship between product design and the manufacturing cost of the product. The readings present tools for evaluating and reducing manufacturing cost.
Create a preliminary bill of materials and cost estimate for your product.
Taguchi Methods Wednesday, March 19
Taguchi Methods and "Robust Design"
Read: Taguchi Methods
Parameter design involves the choice of specific values of design variables, or parameters, and generally occurs after the general configuration and lay out of the product is completed. Several methods exist for choosing values of design parameters and for setting their allowable tolerances. In this session we will discuss and practice the Taguchi Method of parameter design. The Taguchi method is important in that it embodies several powerful, and quite general, ideas about the relationship between product design and product quality. The Lovejoy reading assumes that you are familiar with basic probability and statistics and so a few of you may find the mathematics intimidating. Do not panic; the key ideas will be clarified in class.
Study Questions: List the key design parameters for your product. (Note that these are the parameters that you set through the details of your design. These parameters are the elements of your product that most influence the performance of your product relative to the specifications you have established.)
Project Consulting Monday, March 24
Class will not formally meet today. Rather, I will schedule time to meet with each team for specific project consulting. Please bring your assembly drawing to your consulting session. Also bring your prototype(s) if you think it will be useful in our discussion.
Financial Modeling Wednesday, March 26
Financial Modeling of Development Projects
Read: U&E Chapter 11
In this session we apply traditional financial analysis of projects to product development projects. Because many of you have a lot of background in finance, our emphasis will be the use of the tools at the level of a project team in supporting development decisions, and not on the mechanics of discounted cash flow analysis.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment): Working individually, prepare a draft spreadsheet of the financial analysis for your product. (You should find this exercise very useful when you meet as a group to prepare your assignment for next week.)
Intellectual Property Monday, March 31
Read: Introduction to Patents and Other Intellectual Property U.S. Patent No. 4,697,312 Steelcase Must Pay Big Sum Over Patent U.S. Patent No. 4,060,294 (Optional - the patent over which Steelcase paid $211 million)
Find a patent number on a product that interests you and order the patent. (Before ordering, you may wish to read the abstract of the patent using the web-based patent search tool provided in the course web page.) Omnipat is an excellent provider of patents. You will find an Omnipat order form in the bulkpack, which will be accepted by phone or fax. Omnipat charges you $3.00 plus actual shipping costs and will send the patent via whatever means you choose, including first-class mail, FedEx etc. Copies of patents may also be obtained by mailing a check for $3 (made out to The Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks) along with your name, address, and the patent number to: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, DC 20231. However, the patent office also charges $3.00 and takes much longer (about 3 weeks). If you have not already done so, please review the non-disclosure agreements in the bulkpack. Also note that there is a copy of a licensing agreement in the bulkpack, which you may find interesting.
[As an individual assignment you may submit a copy of the patent you requested with a short (< 1 page) assessment of the strength of the claims.]
Project Consulting Wednesday, April 2
Class will not formally meet today. Rather, I will schedule time to meet with each team for specific project consulting. Please bring your design drawings with you to your consulting session. Also bring any prototypes or materials that will inform our discussion.
Guest Presentation
Environmental Issues Wednesday, April 9
Environmental Issues in Design
Read: Life Cycle Assessment: An Application to Electrical Distribution Systems Paper versus Polystyrene: A Complex Choice Manufacturing for Reuse (optional) A Declaration of Sustainability (optional)
In this session we consider environmental issues in design generally, and life cycle analysis (LCA) specifically. The "coffee cup" article illustrates some of the complexities of this kind of analysis. You may find Paul Hawken's views in the optional reading interesting as well.
Study Questions (Q1 or Q3 may be used as an individual assignment): Propose a scheme for performing the "evaluation" phase of life-cycle assessment (e.g., How might you compare solid waste and greenhouse effects?). What, if any, environmental issues do you face in your projects? Critique Hawken's view (optional).
Project Management II Monday, April 14
Project Management II - high-performance project execution.
Read: U&E Chapter 12
In this session we reflect on the project management experiences of the class and discuss several key ideas in managing development projects in an industrial context.
Study Questions (Q1 may be used as an individual assignment): Describe at least five "lessons learned" about project management based on your experience in this course. Respond to Thought Question 4 at the end of Chapter 12.
Final Presentations
PROJECT SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNMENTS
All assignments must be handed in at the beginning of the class session in which they are due. Note that each of these assignments is intended to pace the development process for your product. There is little if any slack in this schedule and so assignments must be completed on or before the scheduled due date in order to maintain the project schedule.
Assignments will be returned at the end of the following class session if they are handed in on time.
All project assignments except the opportunity proposal are to be completed as a team.
Please deliver all assignments according to the following format (many of these guidelines are intended to facilitate photocopying):
Part 1: Proposal Handout Due by 10AM Mon., Jan. 20 in 1300 SHDH
Prepare a project proposal in any format that fits on one 8.5x11 page (one side only). We will photocopy the proposals and distribute them in class (the same day). If you unavoidably miss the morning deadline, bring 40 copies to class in the afternoon.
Proposals should include: A brief, descriptive project title (2-4 words). Your name, electronic mail address, phone number. A description of the product opportunity you have identified. Your description may include any of the following: documentation of the market need, shortcomings of existing competitive products, and definition of the target market and its size. Please do not present any of your own product ideas at this point; our strict focus in this phase of the course is on the market opportunity and not on solution concepts.
Part 2: Proposal Presentation Due Monday, January 20
Prepare a 90-second presentation to be delivered in class. Your presentation should include: Your name and school/department affiliation. A very brief biographical sketch, perhaps including your educational background and work experience. An explanation or visual demonstration of the product opportunity you have described in your proposal. Given that members of the audience will be able to read your proposal at their leisure, you might spend your time explaining the richness of the market opportunity or demonstrating existing competitive products. Any special skills or assets you have (marketing expertise, access to a shop, a car, electronics wizardry, etc.)
We will provide an overhead projector. Please let us know if you need other audiovisual equipment. Note that we will ruthlessly enforce the 90-second time constraint.
Proposal Guidelines
We strongly encourage you to choose an opportunity satisfying all of the following constraints: There should be a demonstrable market. One good way to verify a market need is to identify existing products that meet the need. Your product need not be a variant of an existing product, but the market need addressed by your product should be clearly evident. The product does not have to have a tremendous economic potential, but should at least be an attractive opportunity for a small firm. You should be confident of being able to create a prototype of the product on a student budget. For example, unless you have unusual access to fabrication facilities a new semiconductor device is likely to be prohibitively expensive to prototype. The product should require no basic technological breakthroughs. (Yes, a more compact airbag would be a nice, but can you do it without inventing a new chemical?) We do not have time to deal with large technological uncertainties. You should have access to more than 5 potential "lead users" of the product (more than 20 would be nice). For example, you may have difficulty developing an agricultural water pump without leaving Philadelphia.
We encourage, but do not require, that you choose an opportunity possessing the following attributes: The opportunity should involve a material good rather than a pure service. Although many of the ideas in the course apply to services (for example, customer needs and product architecture), some do not (for example, Taguchi methods and design for manufacturing). If the product is likely to be a physical good, this product should have a high likelihood of containing fewer than 10 parts. Although you cannot anticipate the design details, it is easy to anticipate that an electric drill will have more than 10 parts and that a garlic press will probably have fewer than 10.
A few more hints: Save any highly proprietary ideas for another context; we will be quite open in discussing the projects in class and do not wish to be constrained by proprietary information. The most successful projects tend to have at least one team member with strong personal interest in the target market. It is really nice to have a connection to a commercial venture that may be interested in the product (one group signed a licensing agreement with a major mail order company with which they had made contact during the first week of the course). Most products are really not very well designed. We are continually amazed at the seemingly poor quality of common products (utility knives, garlic presses, and ice cream scoops, for example). Our experience is that if you pick almost any product satisfying our project guidelines, you will be able to develop a product that is superior to everything currently on the market.
Some Project Examples from Previous Years:
Submit your project preferences on a project selection form (handed out in class). List the ten projects you would most like to work on, in order of preference. If you would like to work with a particular group of classmates, you should all list the exact same project preferences and clip your forms together.
Team and project assignments will be posted via email and outside of 1300 SHDH by 10pm (hopefully by 5pm) on Tuesday, January 21.
Assignment: Mission Statement Due Jan. 27
Hand in a mission statement as described in Chapter 3. Use this assignment to refine the definition of your project and to agree as a team about what your objectives are. As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Customer Needs List Due Feb. 3
Conduct the customer interviews to gather raw data on customer needs. Hand in a list of customer needs for your product as described in Chapter 3 and in the format of Exhibit 8. This list should be organized hierarchically into primary, secondary, and, if necessary, tertiary needs (as defined in the chapter). Identify the three or four needs which you feel are important, but latent and not addressed by current products. You do not need to have completed an importance survey by now, although you should do this soon if you envision hard trade-offs among different needs. As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: 10 Concepts Due Feb. 10
Hand in sketches and bullet-point descriptions of the 10 product concepts you feel are most promising for your project. (You should probably generate 20 or 30 alternatives before choosing these 10.) Please put each concept on a separate sheet with its accompanying description. As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: 3 Concepts Due Feb. 17
Hand in sketches of the three concepts you believe are most promising. These should be slightly more refined than those concepts you handed in last week.
Show the concept selection matrix (screening or scoring) that you used to make these choices. Include a simple description or sketch of each of the concept alternatives considered in your selection process. (You may hand in the same sketches from last week, if the concepts have not changed since then.)
Prepare a list of the key uncertainties or questions you still need to address to determine the viability of your product. For each one, specify an associated plan of action (such as analysis, mock ups, interviews, experiments, etc.) As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Final Concept Due Feb. 24
Hand in a sketch and short description of the concept you plan to pursue. Show your process for selecting this concept, including the results of any concept testing you performed. As always, include a short discussion of lessons learned and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Peer Review and Proof-of-Concept Prototype Due Mar. 3
Prepare a 10-minute (maximum) presentation of your (single) selected product concept. The presentation should include a review of your mission statement, customer needs, selected concept. In this presentation, you should also demonstrate some form of "proof-of-concept" prototype. We will divide the class into two groups for these presentations, allowing for about 5 minutes of discussion after each presentation. You do not need to hand in anything for this session.
Assignment: Project Schedule Due Mar. 5
Prepare a one-page schedule indicating when you plan to complete the remaining project assignments. If you feel an assignment is inappropriate for your project, you may make a proposal for a more appropriate assignment.
THE REMAINING ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE COMPLETED BEFORE THE END OF THE TERM, BUT SHOULD BE COMPLETED ACCORDING TO THE PROJECT SCHEDULE EACH TEAM HAS PREPARED.
Assignment: Specifications and Assembly Drawing
Document the final specifications that you intend to achieve and provide any documentation to support these decisions (as described in Chapter 4).
Prepare an assembly drawing (sketch quality) of the product and a bill of materials indicating whether parts will be standard purchased parts or custom fabricated. An assembly drawing shows the overall product with each part in its "assembled" position. If it would be clearer, you could use an "exploded view" instead of an assembly drawing.
As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Preliminary Part Sketches and Process Selection
Prepare dimensioned sketches of each piece part and photocopies of the vendor literature (e.g., catalog pages) for the standard purchased components. Indicate the material and process you have selected for each part, both for your prototype and for the final production version. The parts should be designed to be as close as possible to the intended final production version as possible. As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Financial Model
Prepare a financial model like that described in Chapter 11 of the text. Perform a sensitivity analysis of the key economic uncertainties you face. As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Final Design
Submit the final version of your part drawings and an assembly drawing. The drawings should describe your prototype as you intend it to be built in final production.
As always, include a short discussion of the process you used, lessons learned, and any observations you have about your team.
Assignment: Final Prototype
You will probably have built and tested several prototypes during the semester. The final prototype is primarily intended to communicate to an investor audience. Therefore it must deliver two key messages:
The product has great customer appeal (e.g., Wow, that's a great concept!)
The product is technically feasible (e.g., Gee, it works!).
In the ideal world, a single prototype can deliver both of these messages (i.e., the prototype is both a "looks like" and a "works like"). However, in some cases a development team can more feasibly deliver these messages with two or more separate prototypes.
You must document your prototype(s) with 35 mm slides. Please turn in 2-3 high-quality 35mm slides of the prototype. These slides are both so that we can review the prototypes and so that we can maintain an archive of course projects.
Assignment: Final Presentation
Prepare a 15-minute presentation describing your product. Your presentation should concentrate on the product itself, although you may wish to emphasize any particularly impressive portions of your development process. An effective presentation includes a slide presentation (computer, overheads, or 35mm) along with a display of the prototype. This presentation should be of the quality you would make to convince a top management group to purchase the rights to your product or to fund its final development and launch. Also prepare a one-page "flyer" or concise brochure designed to promote your product.
Turn in: