Management > Business Administration > Product Design and Development

Product Design and Development posted by duggu on 1/21/2008

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Courseware/Lectures

Test/Tutorials

Course Highlights

This course features many resources from the class, including lecture notes for most sessions and an online textbook given in the readings section (Product Design and Development, co-written by Prof. Steven Eppinger). In addition, both projects guidelines and examples are available.

Course Description

Product Design and Development is a project-based course that covers modern tools and methods for product design and development. The cornerstone is a project in which teams of management, engineering, and industrial design students conceive, design and prototype a physical product. Class sessions are conducted in workshop mode and employ cases and hands-on exercises to reinforce the key ideas. Topics include identifying customer needs, concept generation, product architecture, industrial design, and design-for-manufacturing.

*Some translations represent previous versions of courses.

Syllabus

Course Objectives

The focus of Product Design and Development is integration of the marketing, design, and manufacturing functions of the firm in creating a new product. The course is intended to provide you with the following benefits:

Competence with a set of tools and methods for product design and development.
Confidence in your own abilities to create a new product.
Awareness of the role of multiple functions in creating a new product (e.g. marketing, finance, industrial design, engineering, production).
Ability to coordinate multiple, interdisciplinary tasks in order to achieve a common objective.
Reinforcement of specific knowledge from other courses through practice and reflection in an action-oriented setting.
Enhanced team working skills.

Expectations

This is a 12-unit graduate course. Accordingly, the course has been designed to demand approximately 12 hours per week of your time. It is expected that each student will prepare for and attend all of the class sessions and will regularly enhance class discussions. Most important though are substantial and continuous contributions to the progress of the team project. Experience with project-based design courses is that students often develop high expectations for their projects and devote substantially more time than is required by the instructors. Faculty applaud this enthusiasm, but this course will not penalize students who establish a twelve hour per week average time constraint for their efforts.

Grading

Grading criteria.
ACTIVITIES	PERCENTAGES
Class Participation	20%
Individual Project Proposal	10%
Team Assignments	35%
Final Project Presentation	35%

Course Materials

Ulrich, Karl, and Steven Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 3rd ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. ISBN: 0072471468.

Thomke, Stefan, and Ashok Nimgade. "IDEO Product Development." Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Case 9-600-143, June 22, 2000.

Bowen, H. Kent, and Thomas Everett. "SweetWater." Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Case 9-695-026, November 1, 1994.

Calendar

Course calendar.
SES #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
1	Introduction We will mainly discuss course logistics and project descriptions.
2	The Product Development Process: "IDEO" Be prepared for a detailed discussion of the case. How would you characterize IDEO's process? Its organization and management? Should IDEO accept the Visor project at all? Would you try to negotiate a longer lead time?
3	Project Proposals Each student will give a 50 second presentation (Assignment 1b)	Assignment 1a due before class Assignment 1b due in-class Assignment 1c due 1 day after Ses #3
4	Identifying Customer Needs: "Sweetwater" Be prepared for a detailed discussion of the case. What do you consider to be the most important needs associated with water purification devices such as the Sweetwater Guardian? Get information from experienced users and find out what they think. How did you get the information?
5	Customer Preferences: Conjoint Analysis
6	Industrial Design	Assignment 2 due
7	Product Specifications and Concept Generation
8	Prototyping	Assignment 3 due
9	Concept Selection
10	Faculty Project Consulting In this class session, Teams 1 to 5 will have time to review their concepts with course faculty and team advisors. Bring your customer needs lists, target specifications, concept drawings, and any questions you have for discussion.	Assignment 4 due
11	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) In this class session, Teams 6 to 10 will have time to review their concepts with course faculty and team advisors. Bring your customer needs lists, target specifications, concept drawings, and any questions you have for discussion.
12	Intellectual Property
13	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) The teams will provide some form of "proof-of-concept". Bring a prototype to class that shows that you can overcome the key challenges of your concept.	Assignment 5a due
14	Peer Concept Review Teams 1 to 5 will give a 15-minute presentation to describe their market opportunity and selected concept and demonstrate how the will tackle their key challenges. All students must attend this session.	Assignment 5b due
15	Peer Concept Review (cont.) Teams 6 to 10 will give a 15-minute presentation to describe their market opportunity and selected concept and demonstrate how the will tackle their key challenges. All students must attend this session.
16	Product Architecture	Assignment 6 due
17	Forecasting Demand for New Products
18	Global Manufacturing and Costing
19	Design for Manufacturing	Assignment 7 due
20	Trends and Tools in Product Development
21	Faculty Project Consulting In this class session, Teams 6 to 10 will have time to review their progress with course faculty and team advisors. Be prepared to provide an outline of your final presentation and of the remaining tasks you face.
22	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) In this class session, Teams 1 to 5 will have time to review their progress with course faculty and team advisors. Be prepared to provide an outline of your final presentation and of the remaining tasks you face.
23	Final Meeting Project Presentations Final project presentations will be held approximately from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The location will be announced in class. For more details, refer to the projects section.

Further Reading:

Ulrich, Karl, and Steven Eppinger. Product Design and Development. 3rd ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. ISBN: 0072471468.
In all cases where chapters are listed below, they are from this book.

Thomke, Stefan, and Ashok Nimgade. "IDEO Product Development." Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Case 9-600-143, June 22, 2000.

Bowen, H. Kent, and Thomas Everett. "SweetWater." Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Case 9-695-026, November 1, 1994.

Course readings.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction We will mainly discuss course logistics and project descriptions.	Skim Chapter 1: Introduction.
2	The Product Development Process: "IDEO" Be prepared for a detailed discussion of the case. How would you characterize IDEO's process? Its organization and management? Should IDEO accept the Visor project at all? Would you try to negotiate a longer lead time?	Read Chapter 2: Development Processes and Organizations. Read Harvard Business School Case 9-600-143: IDEO Product Development.
3	Project Proposals Each student will give a 50 second presentation (Assignment 1b)
4	Identifying Customer Needs: "Sweetwater" Be prepared for a detailed discussion of the case. What do you consider to be the most important needs associated with water purification devices such as the Sweetwater Guardian? Get information from experienced users and find out what they think. How did you get the information?	Skim Chapter 4: Identifying Customer Needs. Read Harvard Business School Case 9-695-026: "SweetWater".
5	Customer Preferences: Conjoint Analysis	Read Chapter 4: Identifying Customer Needs.
6	Industrial Design	Read Chapter 10: Industrial Design.
7	Product Specificationsand Concept Generation	Read Chapter 5: Product Specifications and Chapter 6: Concept Generation.
8	Prototyping	Read Chapter 12: Prototyping.
9	Concept Selection	Read Chapter 7: Concept Selection.
10	Faculty Project Consulting In this class session, Teams 1 to 5 will have time to review their concepts with course faculty and team advisors. Bring your customer needs lists, target specifications, concept drawings, and any questions you have for discussion.
11	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) In this class session, Teams 6 to 10 will have time to review their concepts with course faculty and team advisors. Bring your customer needs lists, target specifications, concept drawings, and any questions you have for discussion.
12	Intellectual Property	Read Chapter 14: Patents and Intellectual Property.
13	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) The teams will provide some form of "proof-of-concept". Bring a prototype to class that shows that you can overcome the key challenges of your concept.
14	Peer Concept Review Teams 1 to 5 will give a 15-minute presentation to describe their market opportunity and selected concept and demonstrate how the will tackle their key challenges. All students must attend this session.
15	Peer Concept Review (cont.) Teams 6 to 10 will give a 15-minute presentation to describe their market opportunity and selected concept and demonstrate how the will tackle their key challenges. All students must attend this session.
16	Product Architecture	Read Chapter 9: Product Architecture.
17	Forecasting Demand for New Products	Skim Chapter 8: Concept Testing and Chapter 15: Product Development Economics.
18	Global Manufacturing and Costing	Read Chapter 11: Design for Manufacturing.
19	Design for Manufacturing
20	Trends and Tools in Product Development	Skim Chapter 16: Managing Projects.
21	Faculty Project Consulting In this class session, Teams 6 to 10 will have time to review their progress with course faculty and team advisors. Be prepared to provide an outline of your final presentation and of the remaining tasks you face.
22	Faculty Project Consulting (cont.) In this class session, Teams 1 to 5 will have time to review their progress with course faculty and team advisors. Be prepared to provide an outline of your final presentation and of the remaining tasks you face.
23	Final Meeting Project Presentations Final project presentations will be held approximately from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The location will be announced in class. For more details, refer to the projects section.