03/10/2022, 23:31 Solutions-02 - PRODUCT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

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Sample Answers to Exercises and Thought

Questions: Chapter 2
EX 2.1

Diagram a process for planning and cooking a family dinner. Does your process resemble
the generic product development process? Is cooking dinner analogous to a market-pull,
technology-push, process-intensive, or customization process?

One process might consist of the following steps:

1. Ask spouse, children, or roommates what they feel like eating and when they would like
to eat.

2. Survey available ingredients.

3. Generate three or so alternatives that are both feasible and meet the desires of the
other diners.

4. Select an alternative through a survey or by a subjective judgment.

5. Plan (usually informally and intuitively) the best sequence for preparing the food.
6. Cook and serve.

7. Reflect on the results and the process (just kidding).

The process of cooking dinner could be analogous to any of the four alternatives. It could

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03/10/2022, 23:31 Solutions-02 - PRODUCT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

be market-pull. (What do we want for dinner? Let’s go get what we need.) It could be
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technology-push. (What ingredients and equipment do

we have? What can we make with
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It could be process-intensive. CONTACT
(The only
equipment weUS
have in the

dorm room is a microwave oven.) It could be a customization process. (All we know how to
make is pasta. Do we want spaghetti, ziti, or fettucini?)

EX 2.2

Define a process for finding a job. For what types of endeavors does a well defined
process enhance performance?

The process of finding a job might consist of the following steps:

1. Establish criteria for job satisfaction.

2. Articulate constraints (does not require relocation, etc.)

3. Screen job advertisements relative to the criteria and constraints.

4. Generate a list of companies/jobs that satisfy the criteria and constraints.

5. Apply for the advertised jobs and inquire about the generated alternatives.

6. (Hopefully) interview for a set of jobs and receive offers.

7. Evaluate the offers with respect to the criteria.

8. Select the most promising job.

9. Negotiate terms and conditions of employment.

10. Accept job.

(Of course in some economic climates the process may be much simpler: receive a single
offer, then decide whether to accept it or not.)

We would argue that almost any endeavor benefits from some measure of "process
thinking." Defining a process encourages thinking ahead and anticipating contingencies. In
the case of highly unusual and creative tasks, the process may consist of no more than a
list of three general steps to pursue. In the case of repetitive tasks, the process might
consist of hundreds of detailed steps, some of which may even be automated.

EX 2.3

What type of development process would you expect to find in an established company
successful at developing residential air conditioning units? How about for a small company
that is trying to break into the market for racing wheelchairs?

Air conditioners are fairly standard products embodying relatively stable technologies. We
would expect companies developing air conditioners to have a customization process with
some measure of market-pull. Initially the racing wheelchair company is likely to have a

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03/10/2022, 23:31 Solutions-02 - PRODUCT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

market-pull process. The firm will be looking for ways to satisfy the needs of the customers
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in the market. Eventually,
the firm may adopt more of a
customization process in which
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each customer receives product tailored

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to their own needs, but built US
around a
standard product concept.

EX 2.4

​Sketch the organization (in some appropriate graphical representation) of a consulting firm
that develops new products for clients on a project-by-project basis. Assume that the
individuals in the firm represent all of the different functions required to develop a new
product. Would this organization most likely be aligned with functions, be aligned by
projects, or be a hybrid?

One possible diagram of a consulting firm organization:

Consulting firms almost always have a strong project focus and are either project
organizations or heavyweight project matrix organizations. Teams form and dissolve
almost daily in order to meet the needs of new client engagements. In some firms, there
will also exist some measure of functional organization. For example, there may be a
member of the firm responsible for ensuring that the mechanical engineers have the
software tools they need or that the marketing professionals know the latest research
techniques. Nevertheless, the dominant organizational structure is the project.

TQ 2.1

What role does basic technological research play in the product development process?
How would you modify Exhibit 2-3 to better represent the research and technology
development activities in product development?

This is a large and open-ended question. There is a good discussion of this topic in Clark
and Wheelwright Revolutionizing Product Development. One answer is that technology

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03/10/2022, 23:31 Solutions-02 - PRODUCT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

development is a parallel activity that provides proven technologies that can be taken "off
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the shelf" and used in product

and Wheelwright call this the
development efforts. Clark
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because SITE "ingredients"
technological

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are proven

and then US
shelved
until they are needed to create a "pizza" (product). The amendment to Exhibit 2-3 would
include a technology development activity with an arrow to the concept development
activity. Some might argue that technology development may also lead to the identification
of new product opportunities. In this case, the technology development activity would have
an arrow to an earlier product planning or product strategy activity (not shown in Exhibit 2-
3).

In some settings the technology development and product development are more tightly
coupled. For example, some start-up companies begin with a basic technology or invention
and then work to quickly commercialize it. In such cases, much of their early work could be
considered technology development. It is fraught with uncertainty and, in fact, may result in
failure. Nevertheless, there are some technologies with so much commercial promise that
these risks are worth taking.

TQ 2.2

Is there an analogy between a university and a product development organization? Is a

university a functional or project organization?

(Based on a solution by Louise Jandura)

We can make the analogy between a product development organization and a university
by considering whether there are university equivalents to both the product development
process and the product development organization.

Although a university has many purposes, its primary purpose is the development of
undergraduate students. The student development process is analogous to the product
development process. The student development process takes as its input a high school
graduate whose mission statement is to get an undergraduate degree. Its output, instead
of a product launch is the graduation of the student. Along the way there is a well-defined
series of steps complete with milestones as in the product development process. Although
the detailed series of steps in the student development process is different than in the
product development process, the advantages of the well-defined process are similar. In
both cases the process ensures the quality of the output of the process (student), the
coordination of the resources on the development team (faculty, admissions, physical
plant), the timely completion of the project (graduation in 4 years), the management of the
project, and the improvement of the process.

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Having established the analogy

between the product development process and the

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student development process, step is
to look
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at the analogy US product
between the
development organization and the university. The two primary organizational types are the
functional organization where the primary links are among those who perform similar
functions and the project organization where the primary links are among those who work
on the same project. A university is a functional organization. Some of these functions
include:

• faculty, whose primary role is to teach students.

• admissions, who admit students to the process.

• bursar’s office, who monitor student finances.

• physical plant, who maintains the facilities.

There are certainly other functions that make up a university but using just these four as an
example we can see that they are indeed organized by the function they perform. Although
they are all part of the development of the "product", the student, their strongest ties are to
those who share the same function. As in a product development organization, those
sharing the same function are usually located near each other and report to the same
manager.

If we look even further into the organization of the faculty we see that within the faculty the
organization continues to be a functional organization. Breaking it down further we see:

• faculty, who all teach students.

• schools, who teach students in a particular field, e.g., engineering.

• departments, who teach students in a still more specified field, e.g., mechanical
engineering.

The great strength of a functional organization is that it maintains deep expertise in the
functional areas. The great weakness is that the efficiency of coordination among the
functions is not as good as it could be. This characteristic is seen among universities as
well. A university’s great strength is the vast amount of knowledge contained in its areas of
expertise, not its ability to coordinate among its different functions.

TQ 2.3

What is the product development organization for students engaged in projects as part of
a product development class?

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This is a classic project organization.

Although the students may come from different

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"functions" (e.g., departments, educational
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have strong
organizational linkages to these functions. For the purposes of the course, they have one
goal: to get the project done. Especially if they are graded as a team, the organizational
structure closely mirrors that of a "start-up" or other autonomous project teams. Note that a
strong project organization can exist even without heavyweight project managers. In a
course, no manager is explicitly assigned to each team, yet the team is autonomous and
has the ultimate authority and responsibility to make decisions.

TQ 2.4

​Is it possible for some members of a product development organization to be organized

functionally, while others are organized by project? If so, which members of the team
would be the most likely candidates for the functional organization?

​Yes, this is possible. In fact it happens all the time. A team may consist of several members
who have strong organizational links to the project and of members with strong functional
links. The team members with strong functional links tend to be part-time participants.
Examples include industrial designers, stress analysts, technical writers, model makers, and
sales people. The design, manufacturing, and marketing people on the team with on-going
responsibilities for project work may be linked together by strong project ties, while the
part-time participants may not share those links.

Copyright 2019 Karl Ulrich, Steven Eppinger, and Maria Yang

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