Question

Please shortly in 2 paragraphs discuss the process of designing a product/service.

What are the first through the last steps from the time that the company/person develop an idea until the time that the product delivered to the final customer?

Note: you are not asked to explain the process of product delivery in the supply chain management which begins from the supplier of raw materials and ends to the delivery of the final product to the end customer. Here, you are supposed to discuss about the process of product design.

Answer 1

Answer. Following are the steps of the process of product/service design:-

1. Idea Generation: This step includes understanding the customers and their needs and generating the idea accordingly. The ideas for new products/services can come from a variety of sources both within (Internal sources like  employees, research and development, market research etc) and outside (External sources like customers, environment, technology and strategic position of the organisation) the firm. Even competitors can be the source of idea generation.

2. Screening Ideas: It's purpose is to eliminate those ideas that do not appear to have high potential to avoid the costs incurred at subsequent stages. The idea is evaluated on different dimensions which are further measured on the scale of 0 to 10. The resulting aggregate score helps in deciding which idea to progress and which one to be dropped.

3. Feasibility Study: The initial screening of the ideas is designed to stop the ideas which are unsuitable for further considerations. So, feasibility study consists of a market analysis, an economic analysis, and technical and strategic analysis. The market analysis is done to assess whether there is an enough demand for the proposed product to invest in developing further. If the sufficient demand exists, economic analysis is done to establishing the production and development costs. The risk analysis is also carried out and technical and strategic analysis is concerned with technical viability of the product. Performance specifications are written for product concepts that pass the feasibility study and are finally approved for development.

4. Preliminary Design: The design engineers take general performance specifications and translate them into technical specifications. The process of preliminary design includes building a prototype, testing the prototype, revising the design and, retesting and so on until a viable design is determined. The design constitutes both form and function.

5. Pilot Runs and Testing: Pilot runs of the manufacturing process is conducted and adjustments are made as needed before finalizing the design.  Apart from continuously testing the product, market testing is also carried out to know the acceptability of the product in the defined market and customer group. Therefore, test marketing is a powerful tool.

6. New Product Launch: The launching of new product or service involves co-coordinating the supply chain and rolling out marketing plans. Initially, the production starts at a relatively low level of volume and gradually increase as the organization develops confidence in its abilities. Thus, marketing and production will work in a co-coordinated way during this phase.

(Since you have asked in short 2 paragraphs, so I have tried to short it as much as possible. Hope this solves your problem... Please give it a like and comment if it helps. Thanks)