Archive for the ‘Product Design’ Category

Product Design Is Important

Innovation is a “vital ingredient of business success.”² This is why, in most companies, product design is very important. Product design is the “efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.” It is different from industrial design because the latter usually deals with craft design and mass production of goods. Product design is used in areas that are concerned with furniture, electronics, lighting, tools, toys, and general everyday objects.¹ A broad approach is involved in the design and making of new products.³ Product design is not for those products that already exist. Rather, it is for those that are still under the process of development or those that are still in the form of ideas. Product design helps developers to determine potential products that can be successfully used in businesses.⁴ Knowledge in the process of manufacturing a product in necessary.⁶ This is important especially now that there is a lot of pressure to innovate. Product development times have been reduced by CAD, rapid prototyping, tooling, and other similar technologies.²

You must consider questions such as “What type of innovation, in general, is best suited to the company?” There are a lot of considerations. Will it help if you introduce reduced-price products by cutting costs of production? Or should you introduce enhanced-value products by improving styling or using new materials? Do you need to introduce extensions to an existing product line?² Products change as time passes. An example is the bicycle. Throughout the years, the bicycle underwent a lot of modifications and enhancements as people develop new innovative designs for it. Another example is the mobile phone, whose appearance and functions continually change through time.⁵ Innovation is sometimes very risky. New proposed products might not become successful in business and thus may result to some loss for a company. On the other hand, if a new proposed product becomes successful, then this means a lot of gains for a company.²

Product Development Methodology

The following is a methodology that product designers follow:¹

1. Initial stage
• Idea generation
• Need-based generation
2. Mid stage
• Design solutions
• Production
3. Final stage: Marketing

We derive ideas from our imagination, from observation, or from research. We also innovate when the need to do it arises, such as when we are searching for a solution to a problem, when we need to keep up to a popular trend, or when we need a product to perform a specific task. Product designers respond to user needs. After the production of a design solution, which involves fabrication and manufacturing of the design, the product will be ready for marketing, which is selling the product. Marketing is either client-based or user-based. The difference lies in who sells the product to customers. In a client-based marketing, a designer sells a design to a client who manufactures it and then sells the manufactured product to a customer. On a user-based marketing, a designer develops a design, manufactures it, and then sells it to a customer.¹

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• Beckley, Jacqueline H., et al., eds. Accelerating New Food Product Design and Development. 1st ed. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell, 2007.
• Regan, Cynthia L. Apparel Product Design and Merchandising Strategies. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, c2008.
• Boothroyd, Geoffrey. Assembly Automation and Product Design. 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis, 2005.
• Edwards, Sally. Beyond Child’s Play: Sustainable Product Design in the Global Doll-making Industry. Amityville, NY: Baywood, c2010.
• Shaughnessy, Adrian. BritishDesign 2007/08: Branding and Graphic Design, Packaging Design, New Media Design, Interior, Retail and Event Design, Product Design. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, c2007.
• Cussler, E.L., and G.D. Moggridge. Chemical Product Design. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Ng, Ka M., Rafiqul Gani, and Kim Dam-Johansen, eds. Chemical Product Design: Toward a Perspective Through Case Studies. Boston: Elsevier, 2007.
• Monplaisir, Leslie, and Nanua Singh, eds. Collaborative Engineering for Product Design and Development. Stevenson Ranch: American Scientific Publishers, c2002.
• Li, W.D., et al., eds. Collaborative Product Design and Manufacturing Methodologies and Applications. London: Springer, c2007.
• Kontogeorgis, Georgios M., and Rafiqul Gani., eds. Computer Aided Property Estimation for Process and Product Design. Oxford: Elsevier, 2004.
• Moskowitz, Howard R., Sebastiano Porretta, and Matthias Silcher. Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development. 1st ed. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell, 2005.
• Lidwell, William, and Gerry Manacsa. Deconstructing Product Design: Exploring the Form, Function, Usability, Sustainability, and Commercial Success of 100 Amazing Products. Beverly: Rockport Publishers, c2009.
• Burdek, Bernhard E. Design: History, Theory, and Practice of Product Design. 1st ed. Boston, MA: Birkhauser-Publishers for Architecture, 2005.
• Cross, Nigel. Engineering Design Methods: Strategies for Product Design. 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, c2008.
• Davey, Andrew. Detail: Exceptional Japanese Product Design. London: Laurence King, c2003.
• Mossman, Susan. Fantastic Plastic: Product Design + Consumer Culture. London, UK: Black Dog, c2008.
• HFES 300 Committee. Guidelines for Using Anthropometric Data in Product Design. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, c2004.
• Harper, Charles A., ed. Handbook of Materials for Product Design. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, c2001.
• Silva, Arlindo, and Ricardo Simoes, eds. Handbook of Research on Trends in Product Design and Development: Technological and Organizational Perspectives. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference, 2010.
• IEE Engineering for a Sustainable Future Professional Network. The IEE Seminar on Beyond WEEE Unsustainable Product Design and How to Avoid It: 29 November 2005, the IEE Savoy Place, London, UK. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2005.
• Lochlann Jain, Sarah S. Injury: The Politics of Product Design and Safety Law in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
• Campbell, Robert G., and Edward S. Roth. Integrated Product Design and Manufacturing Using Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing. New York: Marcel Dekker, c2003.
• Huang, George Q., and K. L. Mak. Internet Applications in Product Design and Manufacturing. New York: Springer, c2003.
• Jodidio, Philip. Jean-Michel Wilmotte: Product Design. 1st ed. New York, NY: Prestel Munich London New York, 2010.
• Ashby, Mike, and Kara Johnson. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.
• Pfeifer, Michael. Materials Enabled Designs: The Materials Engineering Perspective to Product Design and Manufacturing. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, c2009.
• Moskowitz, Howard R., et al. Packaging Research in Food Product Design and Development. Ames, Iowa: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
• Pruitt, John S., and Tamara Adlin. The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind throughout Product Design. Boston: Elsevier, c2006.
• Rosato, Dominick, and Donald Rosato. Plastics Engineered Product Design. New York: Elsevier Advanced Technology, 2003.
• Lichtenstein, Claude. Playfully Rigid: Swiss Architecture, Graphic Design, Product Design 1950-2006. Baden: Lars Muller, c2007.
• Haskell, Bert. Portable Electronics Product Design and Development: For Cellular Phones, PDAs, Digital Cameras, Personal Electronics, and More. New York: McGraw-Hill, c2004.
• Roqueta, Hector, ed. Product Design. New York, NY: teNeues, c2002.
• Ulrich, Karl T., and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, c2004.
• Ulrich, Karl T., and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, c2008.
• Crowson, Richard, et al. Product Design and Factory Development. 2nd ed. London: CRC Taylor & Francis, 2006.
• Conant, Susan. Product Design for Life Insurance and Annuities. Atlanta: LOMA, c2001.
• Boothroyd, Geoffrey, Peter Dewhurst, and Winston Knight. Product Design for Manufacture and Assembly. 2nd ed. New York: Dekker, c2002.
• Kamrani, Ali K., and Sa’ed M. Salhieh. Product Design for Modularity. 2nd ed. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2002.
• Giudice, Fabio, Guido La Rosa, and Antonino Risitano. Product Design for the Environment: A Life Cycle Approach. Boca Raton: CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2006.
• Reis, Dalcacio. Product Design in the Sustainable Era. Julius Wiedemann. Ed. Koln: Taschen, c2010.
• Coates, Del. Watches Tell More than Time: Product Design, Information, and the Quest for Elegance. New York: McGraw-Hill, c2003.
• Campos, Cristian, ed. Product Design Now. New York: Collins Design, 2006.
• Otto, Kevin N., and Kristen L. Wood. Product Design: Techniques in Reverse Engineering and New Product Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, c2001.
• Conant, Susan, Lisa M. Kozlowski, and Patsy Leeuwenburg. Risk Management and Product Design for Insurance Companies. Atlanta, GA: LOMA, 2008.
• Moskowitz, Howard R., Jacqueline H. Beckley, and Anna V.A. Resurreccion. Sensory and Consumer Research in Food Product Design and Development. 1st ed. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell, 2006.
• Seavey, Kevin, and Y.A. Liu. Step-growth Polymerization Process Modeling and Product Design. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, c2008.
• Lindemann, Udo, Maik Maurer, and Thomas Braun. Structural Complexity Management: An Approach for the Field of Product Design. Berlin: Springer, c2009.
• Dolgui, Alexandre, Jerzy Soldek, and Oleg Zaikin. Supply Chain Optimisation: Product/Process Design, Facility Location, and Flow Control. New York: Springer c2005.
• Clifton, M. Bradford, et al. Target Costing: Market-driven Product Design. New York: Marcel Dekker, c2004.
• Gilley, Sean Schaeffer, et al. Test Preparation Guide for LOMA 371: Risk Management and Product Design for Insurance Companies. Atlanta: LOMA, c2008.