EXPERIMENT No.

TITLE: Case study on Concept Generation, Screening and Testing.

AIM: To study in detail about concept generation, screening and testing.

INTRODUCTION:

A. CONCEPT GENERATION:

Concept generation is the process of creating ideas for designing a product based on the target
specifications and requirements. These ideas describe the design and working principles of the
product, along with how it can meet the customer requirements. The concept generation phase
starts with analyzing the customer requirements from different angles and results in developing
a final design for the product. You may illustrate the proposed design as a 3D model, blueprint
or rough drawing. Creativity and problem-solving skills are vital for this process.

Here are the steps involved in generating concepts for product design:

1. Analyze the problem

The first step in the concept generation process involves understanding the customer's
concerns. The customer may tell you about the type of product they want, but they may not
have all the required information. You may meet with them, visit their facility and speak with
their staff to understand the problem they're trying to solve and the features they want. Ask for
their mission statement and a list of preliminary specifications.

2. Study the existing solutions

Whether the customer finds no solution or wants a customized solution, learning about existing
solutions to similar problems can make the concept generation process easier. Customizing an
existing solution with relevant functions is often faster and more cost-effective than developing
a new product. A simple online search can help, so you may browse engineering websites.
Conducting a patent search on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website
can also give some useful hints at viable solutions.
Other methods of searching for existing solutions include consulting engineers who worked on
similar projects, interviewing lead users and scanning published literature.

3. Consider new solutions

Once you find a few solutions, you can customize them to fit the specifications of the project.
You may explore those solutions further to determine which ones to pursue or create a new
one. Consider generating a minimum of three solutions. Ideation is a creative process and
there's no single method for it. You can use different techniques like brainstorming, lateral
thinking and mind maps. Focus on generating visual concepts of the product along with its
working principles.
It can help to define the areas and resources to take the ideation process in the right direction.
For example, you can provide the ideation team with the list of goals you want to achieve,
information about the target users and demographics, similar products they can take inspiration
from and the resources the company has or can afford for the project.

4. Review and rank the concepts

After you've developed several concepts for the product, it's time to explore them further and
keep only the best ones. You can do this in several rounds. For example, you first can remove
the concepts that look too similar or those that are beyond the resources of the organization.
It's helpful to have a maximum number of five best concepts for the final review. You can then
analyze them based on factors such as technical feasibility, potential patent issues and funding
requirements.
Some concepts may require sketching to analyze their pros and cons. Consider using a scoring
matrix to rank the concepts. You can assign points to each concept based on essential criteria
for the project, such as projected cost, efficiency, aesthetics and the time required for designing
the product. You can further assign weights to these scoring points based on their importance
for the project. Ranking the concepts based on the overall score gives you the winning concepts.

5. Choose the best concept

The final step involves choosing a winning concept. Companies usually do this through a team
decision. You may decide to choose a hybrid of two or more concepts. It's helpful to think from
the customer's viewpoint and emotionally connect with the product while choosing the final
concept for product design. Once you've picked the winning concept, you can send it for
prototype development, preliminary testing and production drawings.
The following are the important techniques for concept generation:

1. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a popular technique for concept generation. It can help you generate many
ideas through a group exercise. Create a group of five to 10 members with a designated leader,
including people from different backgrounds, to get diverse ideas. Describe the problem and
the solution criteria to the group, and encourage suggestions.
Being specific in describing what you need helps to focus on the problem and reduce the
number of vague ideas. You can set a time limit of 15 to 60 minutes for each session. Focus on
producing ideas without judging them, since the product development team can assess the ideas
later.

2. Reverse brainstorming
Reverse brainstorming is a form of brainstorming where you encourage group members to
think of problems instead of solutions. It's based on the assumption that our minds have a
natural tendency to see problems more easily than solutions. This helps the members view
problems from a different perspective and find innovative solutions. You ask a set of reverse
questions to the participants, such as, “How can I make this product unsafe?” or “How can I
remove this functionality from the product?” Once you know the potential problems, you can
work on solving them to make the product better.

3. Whiteboarding
This technique uses a whiteboard to organize ideas as they come and prevents the team from
forgetting them. It's also helpful for expressing an idea as a sketch or a diagram. This is a tool
that works well with brainstorming. For example, you can start a brainstorming session and
write the ideas on the whiteboard. Consider writing your idea at the center of the board to set
the theme for other team members. Group the ideas in different columns. When the whiteboard
gets full, you can take a picture of the board and erase the content to create more space.
4. Mind mapping
A mind map is a diagram that visually represents information with a clear relationship between
elements and the core concept. The image of the main concept is in the center and the associated
ideas are around it. You can represent the surrounding ideas as branches, images or plain text.
For generating concepts, you can represent the key problem in the center of a paper and write
the related ideas around it. You can break down each idea further into several branches. As an
alternative approach, you can place the product in the center and represent the requirements as
the main branches, and then add ideas that address these requirements.

5. 6-3-5 Brainwriting
In this concept generation technique, there are six participants. The group moderator asks each
member to write three ideas on a worksheet within five minutes. After five minutes, the
moderator again defines the problem. The participants exchange their sheets with other
members. They can now add another three ideas to the sheet or develop the ideas of the previous
participants. This exercise continues for six rounds until each participant gets back their
original sheet. Within 30 minutes, you can generate up to 108 ideas through this technique.

B. SCREENING:

Idea screening is an important step in new product development. When a new product idea is
created, it often needs to be screened before development can continue. Screening means
determining the potential of the concept and whether the idea will lead to a viable product.

At the idea screening stage, you must take into account the needs of your market, competitors,
current products, and their flaws. You need to leverage the market research data or feedback to
determine the viability and worth of a new idea. It will also answer questions like:

• How responsive are the customers to your new product or service?

• Is there any market gap in your proposed product idea?

• How satisfied are your customers with your products and services?
Here are the four key steps to successful idea screening to differentiate good ideas from bad
ones.

Brainstorm Product or Service Ideas

The first step of idea screening is brainstorming, which consists of generating numerous ideas
and classifying them into different categories. This allows for a more thorough analysis of the
product you wish to bring to the market.

Before you can start the screening process, collect ideas from various stakeholders, customers,
and team members. You need to analyze the customer demands you can fulfill and understand
their urgency. Consider the existing product lines in the market that meet client demands and
if you should also produce them regardless of the market.

This is the time to generate as many ideas as possible without thorough analysis. The next step
is using idea screening criteria to eliminate concepts that don’t correspond with your overall
business objectives.

Assess the Concepts Against Particular Criteria

For a product to be successful, it must be evaluated against particular criteria based on your
business and target audience needs. You should create questionnaires about your products to
determine if they satisfy each of these needs.

Some of the common examples of idea screening criteria are:

Audience: Does your target market have room for expansion? Will your product help you
reach new customers? Do your offerings fulfill the needs and expectations of your target
audience?

Profitability: How much money should be invested to produce the product successfully? How
much profit will the company make once the product hits the market?

Product value: Is your product relevant to the target market? How will your product benefit
the customer? If your product value is minimal, it is less likely to succeed in the market.

Scalability: Can the product be consistently replicated to fulfill business standards? Or does it
need to be frequently adjusted or reinvented?

Branding: Does the product idea align with your company image? Will this product fulfill
your business goals and branding initiatives?
Carry out qualitative and quantitative research

Before your product reaches the idea stage to the production stage, a great way to analyze
market demand is through idea screening. However, you may not always have adequate data
or statistics to answer your questions or support your conclusions.

This is the situation when qualitative and quantitative research comes into play. Qualitative
research includes focus groups to discuss product specifics and surveys to gather unbiased data
or testimonials about existing products in the market. As a result, it reveals the reaction of the
target market towards your product.

Conversely, quantitative research is a way to provide you with statistics and verifiable evidence
to support your conclusions.

Concept Development & Testing

At this stage, you have already gathered your thoughts and done your market research. Now,
it’s time to refine the ideas into concepts that have survived the screening process. This entails
taking the concept and breaking it down into its technical components. This is to help the
stakeholders and team members comprehend the idea better.

To visualize the final product, you can use computer-aided design (CAD), animation,
simulation, or physical mock-ups to get a real feel about your product. After you put together
the concept and demonstrate it to the stakeholder, the next task is to test the concept.

The most popular kind of concept testing is using surveys to gauge consumer reaction to a
product concept prior to launch. This process would help you confirm the potential of your
product idea in the market. As a result, you can decide whether to move forward with the
concept or stop investing in the product.

C. TESTING:

Testing is a critical step in the product development process that helps companies to refine and
improve their products before they are launched in the market. Testing involves creating
prototypes and evaluating them to identify any potential issues or challenges.
Here are some key types of testing that are commonly used in product development:

Concept testing: This involves gathering feedback from potential customers on the product
concept and design. This can be done through surveys, focus groups, and other research
methods. The goal is to identify any potential issues or areas for improvement before the
product is developed further.

Prototype testing: This involves creating a physical or digital prototype of the product and
testing it with potential customers. This can involve usability testing, functionality testing, and
other types of testing to identify any issues or challenges that need to be addressed.

Alpha testing: This involves testing the product in a controlled environment with a limited
number of users. The goal is to identify any issues or bugs in the product and make
improvements before it is released to a larger audience.

Beta testing: This involves releasing the product to a larger audience of users for testing and
feedback. The goal is to gather feedback from real users and identify any issues or challenges
that need to be addressed before the product is launched.

Market testing: This involves launching the product in a limited market to evaluate its
performance and gather feedback from customers. The goal is to identify any issues or
challenges and make improvements before the product is launched in a wider market.

Overall, testing is a critical step in the product development process that helps companies to
refine and improve their products before they are launched in the market. By carefully testing
prototypes and gathering feedback from users, companies can increase their chances of success
and develop products that meet the needs of their customers.

Case Study 1:

Purpose
The ever changing needs of customers require companies to speed up the new product
development process. Thus, the web and social media enable companies to interact and to share
knowledge with customers, and to cocreate new products with them. The purpose of this study
is to analyze the innovation outputs companies can achieve by involving customers at the
“fuzzy front end” of the new product development (NPD) process.

Design/methodology/approach
A case study method has been adopted because the phenomenon under investigation is new, it
is hard to find similar researches, and the study attempts to increase researchers’ understanding
of such phenomenon. The case study method has enabled the exploration of the strategies used
and the results achieved by an international food company, which has involved ordinary
customers at early stages of its NPD process, namely at the idea generation and screening
stages.

Findings
The case study shows that customers freely provide valuable, original, new, and feasible ideas
that can foster product and service innovation, and may also trigger process innovation. Thus,
the case study shows how the company has outsourced to customers the idea generation and
screening stages of the NPD. The case illustrates how the food company has used the ideas
gathered from customers to develop new products and new services. Increasingly, it shows also
how the company has gathered strategic information about consumers’ needs and desires
(marketing intelligence). Finally, this research discusses the importance of knowledge
codification facilitators and of informal, peer‐to‐peer, and transparent communication as
enablers of consumers’ ideas sharing.

Case Study 2:

Generating novel ideas is a challenging part of engineering design, especially when the design
task has been undertaken for an extended period of time. How can experienced designers
develop new ideas for familiar problems? A tool called Design Heuristics provides strategies
that support engineers in considering more, and more different, concepts during idea
generation. Design Heuristics have been shown to help novice engineers create a set of more
diverse and creative candidate concepts. In this case study, we extended this approach to a
group of professional engineers who had worked on a specific product line for many years. In
a workshop format, a small group of engineers worked with the heuristics in two separate
sessions and generated ideas collaboratively. Video recordings were analyzed to reveal how
the heuristics were used to stimulate new designs for their product line. We found that Design
Heuristics bring order in ideas and elaboration on ideas, perhaps through coordinating effort
on idea evaluation, increasing capacity to improve the ideas of others, and facilitating
interaction between participants. This case study shows using Design Heuristics can assist
even expert engineers to increase the variety of concepts generated, resulting in a larger set of
ideas to consider.

SUMMARY:

The above two papers summarizes the use of customer ideas and Design Heuristics tool
for concept generation and then its screening and testing.Customers freely provide
valuable, original, new, and feasible ideas that can foster product and service innovation, and
may also trigger process innovation. A tool called Design Heuristics provides strategies that
support engineers in considering more, and more different, concepts during idea generation.
CONCLUSION:

Concept Generation: A thermos bottle is a container designed to keep hot liquids hot and cold
liquids cold for extended periods of time. To generate potential product ideas for a new thermos
bottle, one might consider the following:

Material: What materials could be used to make the thermos bottle? Could the bottle be made
from stainless steel, glass, or plastic?

Size and Shape: What should be the size and shape of the thermos bottle? Should it be tall and
narrow, short and wide, or somewhere in between?

Insulation: How should the bottle be insulated to maintain temperature? Should it have a
double-walled construction, vacuum insulation, or another type of insulation?

Lid: What type of lid should the thermos bottle have? Should it be a screw-on cap, a flip-top
lid, or a push-button lid?

Accessories: What additional accessories could be included with the thermos bottle? Could it
come with a carrying strap, a cup, or a built-in thermometer?

These are just a few potential ideas for concept generation of a thermos bottle. By considering
different materials, sizes and shapes, insulation methods, lids, and accessories, one can generate
a range of potential concepts for a new thermos bottle. The next step would be to screen these
concepts based on established criteria such as market demand, technical feasibility, and
production cost, before moving on to testing and prototyping.

Screening: After generating potential concepts for a new thermos bottle, one would need to
evaluate these concepts against established screening criteria to determine which concept(s) to
move forward with. Here are some potential screening criteria:

Market Demand: Is there a market demand for the proposed thermos bottle concept? Is the
target market large enough to justify the investment in developing and producing the product?

Technical Feasibility: Is the proposed concept technically feasible to produce at a reasonable

cost? Can the company manufacture the bottle using the selected materials and insulation
methods within its production capabilities?

Production Cost: What is the estimated production cost for the proposed thermos bottle
concept? Can the company produce and sell the bottle at a competitive price point?

Differentiation: How does the proposed thermos bottle concept differ from existing products
in the market? Does it offer a unique selling point or advantage?
Environmental Impact: What is the environmental impact of the proposed thermos bottle
concept? Does it use sustainable materials or production methods?

By evaluating potential thermos bottle concepts against these screening criteria, one can
identify which concept(s) have the greatest potential for success and are worth moving forward
with to the testing and prototyping stage.

Testing: After selecting a concept for the new thermos bottle and developing a prototype, one
would need to conduct testing to ensure that the bottle performs as intended and meets customer
needs. Here are some potential types of testing:

Thermal Performance: The company could conduct thermal performance testing to determine
how long the thermos bottle can keep hot and cold liquids at their desired temperatures. This
testing would involve filling the bottle with hot or cold liquid and measuring the temperature
at various intervals over time.

Durability Testing: The company could conduct durability testing to ensure that the thermos
bottle can withstand normal wear and tear, including drops and impacts. This testing would
involve subjecting the bottle to a series of simulated impacts and drops to assess its durability.

Leakage Testing: The company could conduct leakage testing to ensure that the thermos bottle
does not leak or spill liquid when in use. This testing would involve filling the bottle with liquid
and subjecting it to various conditions, such as shaking or tilting, to assess its leak resistance.

User Testing: The company could conduct user testing to gather feedback from potential
customers on the bottle's design, functionality, and ease of use. This testing would involve
having a group of individuals use the bottle in various scenarios and provide feedback on their
experience.

By conducting these types of testing, one can ensure that the new thermos bottle meets
performance and quality standards, and that it meets the needs and expectations of its target
market. Any issues or problems that are identified during testing can then be addressed before
the product is launched to market.
New Concept: The "Smart" Thermos Bottle

The Smart thermos bottle is a revolutionary new concept that incorporates smart technology to
enhance the user experience. Here are some key features of the Smart:

Temperature Monitoring: The Smart thermos bottle has a built-in temperature sensor that
continuously monitors the temperature of the liquid inside the bottle. Users can access this
information via a mobile app that connects to the bottle via Bluetooth.

Temperature Control: The Smart thermos bottle also includes a heating and cooling element
that allows users to adjust the temperature of the liquid inside the bottle. Using the mobile app,
users can set the desired temperature and the bottle will adjust accordingly.

Personalization: The mobile app allows users to customize their Smart Thermos bottle
experience, including setting personalized temperature preferences, receiving notifications
when the bottle needs to be refilled or cleaned, and tracking their hydration levels.

Durability: The Smart thermos bottle is constructed with high-quality materials, including a
double-walled stainless steel body and vacuum insulation, to ensure durability and long-lasting
performance.

Sustainability: The Smart thermos bottle is designed with sustainability in mind, using eco-
friendly materials and packaging, and including a reusable straw and cup to reduce waste.

This new concept for a thermos bottle incorporates innovative smart technology to provide
users with a personalized and enhanced experience. The Smart thermos bottle also prioritizes
durability and sustainability, making it an attractive option for eco-conscious consumers. The
next step would be to screen this concept based on established criteria, and then move on to
prototyping and testing.