scholarly journals Making a Difference and a Profit

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (11) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Douglas L. Van Bossuyt
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Iterative Approach ◽  
Value Proposition ◽  
Customer Feedback ◽  
Development Cycle ◽  
The Social ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Product Development Cycle

This article examines different approaches that could be applied / used by engineers for lean design. Lean design can let companies make a profit while satisfying customers in the developing world. In developing markets, difficulty in gathering the necessary data can lead to lengthy delays or broad assumptions in the product development cycle. The iterative approach of lean design stresses leveraging sales data, customer feedback, and distributor feedback to evaluate and refine the important metrics of value, growth, and impact of a particular product that could drive the design process and optimize the product. The experts also say that when designing products for the developing world, making money is not the only value proposition. Engineers must keep ethics in mind. Engineers must also understand the social and health consequences of introducing products into the marketplace and ensure that any product does not adversely impact the customer or community. Products must be designed that have broad enough appeal to drive a sustainable market for the company.

scholarly journals Impact of rapid manufacturing on design for manufacture for injection moulding

2003 ◽  
Vol 217 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Mansour ◽  
R Hague
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Injection Moulding ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Rapid Manufacturing ◽  
Development Cycle ◽  
Engineering Environment ◽  
Product Development Cycle ◽  
The Impact

Rapid manufacturing (RM) employs similar technologies and processes to rapid prototyping (RP), hence resulting in a tool-less manufacturing process. This is achieved by assuming that RP machines have been converted to proper manufacturing machines. The current approaches to the design process, product development cycle and manufacturing considerations at the design stage within a concurrent engineering environment are closely examined. An attempt is then made to investigate the effect of the RM processes on the design process and product development cycle. This is further expanded to consider the impact of RM on rules and guidelines that have been established for design for manufacturing (DFM). This paper is limited to a comparison of RM with regards to injection moulding as RM is most likely to compete with this process in the first instance. This is the first research work to investigate the impact of RM on the design process.

High-throughput screening in the diagnostics industry

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Wilson ◽  
S. Howell
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Rapid Identification ◽  
Target Antigen ◽  
Cycle Times ◽  
Development Cycle ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Product Development Cycle ◽  
Automated Screening

The diagnostics industry is constantly under pressure to bring innovation quicker to market and so the impetus to speed up product-development cycle times becomes greater. There are a number of steps in the product-development cycle where the application of high-throughput screening can help. In the case of lateral-flow immunodiagnostics the selection of antibody reagents is paramount. In particular, rapid identification of antibody pairs that are able to ‘sandwich’ around the target antigen is required. One screen that has been applied successfully is the use of surface plasmon resonance biosensors like Biacore®. Using such a system one can evaluate over 400 antibody pairings in under 5 days. Conventional approaches to screen this number of antibody pairs would take many months. Other automated screening systems like DELFIA® can be used in processing the vast amount of tests required for clinical trials. In addition, the use of robotics to automate routine product testing can be used to shorten the product-development cycle.

What is a Prototype? What are the Roles of Prototypes in Companies?

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlye A. Lauff ◽  
Daria Kotys-Schwartz ◽  
Mark E. Rentschler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Consumer Electronics ◽  
Informed Decision Making ◽  
Design Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Development Cycle ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Product Development Cycle

Prototyping is an essential part of product development in companies, and yet it is one of the least explored areas of design practice. There are limited ethnographic studies conducted within companies, specifically around the topic of prototyping. This is an empirical and industrial-based study using inductive ethnographic observations to further our understanding of the various roles prototypes play in organizations. This research observed the entire product development cycle within three companies in the fields of consumer electronics (CE), footwear (FW), and medical devices (MD). Our guiding research questions are: What is a prototype? What are the roles of prototypes across these three companies? Through our analysis, we uncovered that prototypes are tools for enhanced communication, increased learning, and informed decision-making. Specifically, we further refine these categories to display the types of communication, learning, and decision-making that occur. These insights are significant because they validate many prior prototyping theories and claims, while also adding new perspectives through further exploiting each role. Finally, we provide newly modified definitions of a prototype and prototyping based on this empirical work, which we hope expands designers' mental models for the terms.

Product Development Cycle Time and Organizational Performance

1997 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Ittner ◽  
David F. Larcker
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Cycle Time ◽  
New Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Development Cycle ◽  
Product Development Cycle ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Functional Teams

The authors develop and test a simple conceptual model linking product development cycle time to organizational performance. Using data from two industries (automobile and computer) and four countries (Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States), they find that faster cycle time alone is not associated with higher accounting returns, sales growth, or perceived overall performance. Stronger support is found for the hypothesis that some product development practices, such as cross-functional teams and advanced design tools, interact with accelerated product development to improve performance, whereas other practices, such as reverse engineering of competitors’ products, suppress the potential benefits from lower cycle times. Finally, interaction effects for other organizational practices, such as customer involvement in the product development process and the extent to which new technology is obtained from external sources, appear to vary by industry.

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