CHAPTER THREE
DESIGN OF OPERATIONS SYSTEM
Product (Service) Design and Development
3.1.1 What is Design?
Design is the process of structuring of
component parts /activities of products so that as
a unit it can provide value for the customer.
Product is designed in terms of size, colour,
shape, content and other related dimensions.
Who is responsible for design?
It is not only operations department but also an interactive
decision of marketing (4P’s), purchasing (what materials
are required to produce the products), finance (return on
investment, financial liquidity), engineering, legal
(warranty and liability issues), quality control
(conformance with product specifications), government,
top management (decision used for a long period of time)
and other stakeholders, etc.
3.1.2 Objectives of Design
The objectives of design may vary from situations to situations and
from organization to organization.
An obvious reason includes:
To be competent (by offering new products or services).
To reduce cost and increase profit.
To develop new products or services as alternatives to
downsizing.
To design products/services that have customer appeal
To increase quality and level of customer satisfaction
Product design is the process of defining
all the features and characteristics of just
about anything you can think of.
Consumers respond to a product‘s appearance,
colour, texture, and performance. All of its
features, summed up, are the product‘s design.
Product design is also defined as: ‘a product‘s
characteristics, such as its
appearance, the materials it is made up of,
its dimensions and tolerances, and
its performance standards’.
[Link] Philosophies Towards Product Design
and Development
There are three fundamentally different ways to introduce new products.
i. Market pull: the market is the primary basis for determining the products.
Customer’s wants and needs play the primary role for new product
development and design.
ii. Technology push philosophy: technology is the primary determinant of
the product that the firm should make with little regard for the market. One
should sell what can be produced i.e. the existing technology determine
what kind of product to be produced
iii. Inter functional philosophy: stated that product design and development
is neither market pull nor technology push. Rather it is inter functional and
interactive process of customers, marketing, finance, engineering and other
related functional areas.
Phases in Product Development Process
1. Idea generation
2. Feasibility analysis
3. Initial (Preliminary) Product Design
4. Prototype development
5. Prototype Testing
6. Final Product Design
7. Product introduction
8. Follow-up evaluation
1. Idea Generation
Idea may come from varies sources.
Customers: it is the principal source.
gathering data from customers in a formal and structured
way, including questionnaires and interviews.
Listening to the customer
Focus groups, for example, are one formal but unstructured
way of collecting ideas and suggestions from customers.
competitor activity: follow the activities of their competitors.
staff:. These staff may have good ideas about
what customers like and do not like.
R & D: means attempting to develop new
knowledge and ideas in order to solve a
particular problem or to grasp an opportunity.
2. Screening (Feasibility Analysis
Not all concepts which are generated will
necessarily be capable of further development
into products and services.
assessing each concept or option against a
number of design criteria.
Market feasibility: evaluate the new ideas in terms of
whether the product has market or not,
Financial (economic) feasibility: how well the product quality
performance and costs confirm to the design objectives and,
Technical feasibility: availability of technology and skilled labor.
At last, the most feasible and viable product concept is selected for
the next stages.
3. Initial (Preliminary) Product Design
This stage of the product-design process is
concerned with developing the best design for the
new product ideas.
It is the translation of ideas in to products.
Preliminary product design must specify the
product completely.
4. Prototype Construction
If the preliminary product design is approved, a
prototype/s may be built for further testing and
analysis.
Several prototypes which closely resembles with the
final products may be made by hand from some
artificial materials such as plastics, mud,(soft,sticky)
clay, wood etc.
5. Prototype Testing
A model is tested for its physical properties or
uses under actual operating conditions.
technical performance.
The purpose of a test market is to gather
quantitative data on customer acceptance of the
new product.
In general, such testing is important in
uncovering any problems and correcting them
prior to full scale production.
6. Final Product Design
Market test is used to determine the extent of consumer
acceptance. If this market test is unsuccessful, return to
the design review phase (this phase is handled by
marketing).
Drawing and specifications for the product are to be
developed at this stage.
And go for full scale operations.
7. Product Introduction: this stage is used to
promote the product; handled by marketing
8. Follow-up Evaluation: it helps to determines
if changes are needed & refine forecasts; handled
by marketing.
Legal and Ethical Considerations
Designers are often under pressure to Speed up
the design process and Cut costs. These
pressures force trade-off decisions.
Product Liability - A manufacturer is liable for
any injuries or damages caused by a faulty
product.
Uniform Commercial Code – Says that products
carry an implication of merchantability and fitness;
i.e., a product must be usable for its intended
purpose
Designers Adhere to Guidelines
Produce designs that are consistent with
the goals of the company
Give customers the value they expect
Make health and safety a primary
concern
Consider potential harm to the
environment
Strategies for product or service life cycle
A "new product introduction" strategy refers to a
planned approach to bringing a new product to
market, including steps like thorough market
research, identifying the target audience and sales
for the product launch.
it's a roadmap to successfully introduce a new
item to consumers.
Cont’d
• There are typically four stages of the product
life cycle:
introduction,
growth,
maturity, and
decline.
Introduction Stage of the PLC
Growth stage PLC
Maturity stage of PLC
Decline stage of PLC
Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
DFM is a product development approach that
explicitly considers the effectiveness with
which an item can be made during the initial
development of the product design.
Manufacturability refers to the ease with which
the product can be manufactured. Three
concepts are closely related to designing for easy
of production.
These are: simplification,
specification, and
standardization.
Simplifications: is a design or redesigns
strategy that improves the manufacturability,
serviceability, or reliability of a product or service
by reducing the complexity of its design.
Specifications: is a detail description of
material, parts, or products including physical
dimensions.
These specifications profiled production
department with precise information about the
characteristics of products to be produced.
Degree Standardization
standardization: refers to a design activity
that reduce variety amount a group of product or
parts.
Extent to which there is an absence of variety in a
product, service or process
Standardized products are immediately
available to customers
Mass Customization
A strategy of producing standardized
goods or services, but incorporating
some degree of customization
Delayed differentiation: is a postponement
tactic
Producing but not quite completing a
product or service until customer
preferences or specifications are known
Modular Design: is a form of standardization in
which component parts are subdivided into
modules that are easily replaced or interchanged.
Reliability
Reliability: The ability of a product, part, or
system to perform its intended function under a
prescribed set of conditions.
Failure: Situation in which a product, part, or
system does not perform as intended
Normal operating conditions: The set of
conditions under which an item’s reliability is
specified.
Range of operating condition
Robust Design: Design that results in products or
services that can function over a broad range of
conditions
Product is designed so that small variations in production
or assembly do not adversely affect the product.
Typically results in lower cost and higher quality.
Cultural difference: designer must take into
account any differences of different country.
Degree of newness: product design change can
range from modification of an existing to an
entirely new product
[Link] of an existing product/service
[Link] of an existing product/service
[Link] of a competitor’s product/service
[Link] product/service
Degree of newness…
Type of Design Newness of the Newness to the
Change organization market
Modification Low Low
Expansion Low Low
Clone High Low
New High High
i.e. newness for organization in transition process
Newness to the market degree of acceptance to
new product
Their effect on cost and pricing
Concurrent engineering
It is an approach that brings many people
together in the early phase of product design
in order to simultaneously design the product
and the process. In its narrowest sense,
concurrent engineering means bringing
engineering design and manufacturing people
together early in the design phase
Group Technology (GT)
GT is parts or products with similar characteristics in to
families, and sets aside groups of machines for their
productions. GT is the process of creating groupings of
products based on similar processing requirements.
Families may be based on size, shape, manufacturing, (or
routing) requirement or demand.
The goal is to identify a set of products with similar
processing requirements and minimize machine
Value Analysis and Value Engineering
The term VA and VE are used almost interchangeably but they are
not identical.
VE focuses on pre- production design improvement while
VA focuses on design improvement during production,
examination of the function of parts and materials in an
effort to reduce cost and/or improve product performance
Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
CAD is an electronic system for designing new
parts or products or altering existing ones,
replacing drafting traditionally done by hand.
software that allow a designer to manipulate
geometric shapes and create visual display.
increases productivity of designers, 3 to 10
times
creates a database for manufacturing
information on product specifications
provides possibility of engineering and cost
analysis on proposed designs
Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)
CAM is an electronic system which is used to
design production process and control machine
tools and material flow through programmable
automation.
CAM control manufacturing equipment.
CAM is often driven by the CAD system.
Computer technology used to develop an
interactive, 3-D model of a product from the
basic CAD data.
Allows people to see the finished design before a
physical model is built.
3- D is Very effective in large-scale designs such
as plant layout.
Virtual Reality Technology
Computer technology used to develop an
interactive, 3-D model of a product from the
basic CAD data.
Allows people to see the finished design before a
physical model is built.
3- D is Very effective in large-scale designs such
as plant layout.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
The key purpose of quality function
deployment is to try to ensure that the
eventual design of a product or service actually
meets the needs of its customers.
It is also known as the house of quality‘
(because of its shape) and the voice of the
customer‘ (because of its purpose).
The technique tries to capture what the
customer needs and how it might be
achieved.
The QFD matrix is a formal articulation of
how the company sees the relationship
between the requirements of the customer
(what‘s) and the design characteristics of the new
product (the how‘s).
Service Design
Service refers to an act; something is done to or for
a customer. It provided by service delivery system.
Service delivery system: the Facilities, Processes,
Skills needed to provide a service.
Product bundle: combination of goods and services
provided to a customer.
Service package: Service design involves development and
refinement of the overall requirement.
The physical resources needed
The goods that are purchased or consumed by the customer
Explicit services (core /essential feature of it direct and tangible
services provided to customers)
Implicit services(extra features e.g. friendliness )
are not explicitly stated but are assumed to be included based on
the nature of the service
Phases in Service Design
1. Conceptualize: Idea generation, assessment of
customer wants /needs, assessment of demand
potential
2. Identify service package components
3. Determine performance specifications
4. Translate performance specifications into design
specifications
5. Translate design specifications into delivery
specifications
Service Blueprinting
Service blueprinting is a method used in service
design to describe and analyze a proposed
service.
It is a useful tool for conceptualizing a service
delivery system.
It provides a visual model of the process
The end of
chapter 3