Chapter 2
Development Processes and
Organizations
Learning Objectives
 Is there a standard development process that
will work for every company?
 What role do experts from different functional
areas play in the development process?
 What milestones can be used to divide the
overall development process into phases?
 Should the development organization be
divided into groups corresponding to projects
or to development functions?
Usefulness of a well-defined
Development Process
Quality assurance
Coordination
Planning
Performance Management
Improvement
Six Phases of the Generic
Development Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Planning
Concept development
System-Level design
Detail design
Testing and refinement
Production ramp-up
Planning
Often referred to as “phase zero” since
it precedes the project approval and
launch of the actual product
development process.
Output: Target market, business goals,
key assumptions and constraints.
Concept Development
Needs of the target market are
identified, alternative products concepts
are generated and evaluated, and one
more concepts are selected for further
development and testing.
System-level Design
Includes the definition of the product
architecture and the decomposition of
the product into subsystems and
components.
The final assembly scheme for the
production system is usually defined
during this phase.
Detail Design
Includes complete product
specifications such as tolerances,
materials, geometry, etc.
Specifications of the purchased parts
Process plans and assembly plans of
the product defined
Tooling defined
Testing and Refinement
 Involves construction and evaluation of
several preproduction versions of the product
 Early (alpha) prototypes: Usually built with
production-intent parts -- parts with the same
geometry and material properties as the
production version but not necessarily
fabricated with the actual processes to be
used in production.
 Alpha prototypes tested to determine
whether (a) the product will work as designed
and (b) product satisfies key customer needs.
Testing and Refinement
 Beta prototypes are usually built with parts
supplied by the intended production
processes but may not be assembled using
the intended final assembly process.
 Beta prototypes used to answer questions
about performance and reliability in order to
identify necessary engineering changes.
Production ramp-up
The product is made using the intended
production system.
Purpose is to train the work force and
weed out any remaining problems in
the production processes
 Transition from ramp-up to normal
production is gradual
The Generic Product
Development Process
Concept Development
Activities
 Identifying customer needs
 Establishing target specifications
 Concept generation
 Concept selection
 Concept testing
 Setting final specifications
 Project planning
 Economic analysis
 Benchmarking of competitive products
 Modeling and prototyping
Identifying customer needs
The goal of this activity is to understand
customers’ needs and to effectively
communicate them to the development
team.
Output: organized customer needs list,
importance rating for each need
Establishing target
specifications
Specifications provide a precise
description of what a product has to
do. They are translation of the
customer needs into technical terms.
Targets for the specifications are set
early in the process and represent the
hopes of the development team.
Concept generation
The goal is to thoroughly explore the
space of product concepts that may
address the customer needs
Concept generation includes a mix of
internal and external search
Output: Usually a set of 10-20
concepts, each typically represented by
a sketch and brief descriptive text
Concept selection
Concept selection is the activity in
which various product concepts are
analyzed and sequentially eliminated to
identify the most promising concept(s).
Concept testing
One or more concepts are tested to
verify that the customer needs have
been met, assess the market potential
of the product, and identify any
shortcomings.
Setting final specifications
The target specifications set earlier in
the process are revisited after a concept
has been selected and tested.
Project planning
 The team creates a detailed development
schedule, devises a strategy to minimize
development time, and identifies the
resources required to complete the project.
 Major results of the front-end activities are
captured in a contract book which contains
the mission statement, the customer needs,
the detail of the selected concept, the
product specifications, the economic analysis
of the product, the development schedule,
the project staffing, and the budget.
Economic analysis
The team often with the support of a
financial analyst, builds an economic
model for the new product.
This model is used to justify
continuation of the overall development
program and to resolve specific tradeoff among, for example, development
costs and manufacturing costs.
Benchmarking of competitive
products
An understanding of competitive
products is critical to successful
positioning of a new product and can
provide a rich source of ideas for the
product and production process design.
Modeling and prototyping
 Every stage of the concept development
process involves various forms of models and
prototypes. These may include, among
others: early “proof-of-concept” models,
which help the development team to
demonstrate feasibility: “form-only” models,
which can be shown to customers to evaluate
ergonomics and style; and spreadsheet
models of technical trade-offs.
Adapting the Generic Product
Development Process
Technology-push product
Platform products
Process-intensive products
Customized products
Technology-Push Products
The firm begins with a new proprietary
technology and looks for an appropriate
market in which to apply this
technology
Gore-Tex (an expanded Teflon sheet)
manufactured by W.L. Gore Associates
Technology-Push Products
Many extremely successful products have
arisen from technology-push development
This approach is unlikely to succeed unless
- the assumed technology offers a clear
competitive advantage
- suitable alternative technologies are
unavailable or very difficult for
competitors to utilize.
Platform Products
 A platform product is built around a
preexisting technological subsystem ( a
Technology Platform).
 Examples: tape transport mechanism in the
Sony Walkman, the Apple Macintosh OS
 Huge investments were made in developing
these platforms, and therefore every attempt
is made to incorporate them into several
different products.
Platform Products
Differences between Technology Push &
Platform products:
a technology platform has already
demonstrated its usefulness in the marketplace
in meeting customer needs
Products built on technology platforms are
much simpler to develop than if the technology
were developed from scratch.
Process Intensive Products
Examples of process-intensive products
include semiconductors, foods,
chemicals, and paper.
In many cases, process-intensive
products are produced in very high
volumes and are bulk, as opposed to
discrete goods.
Customized Products
 Examples: switches, motors, batteries, and
containers.
 Slight variations of standard configurations
and typically developed in response to a
specific order by a customer.
 Development of customized products consists
primarily of setting values of design variables
such as physical dimensions.
Variants of Generic
Development Process
Product Development
Organizations
 Organizations are formed by establishing
formal or informal links among individuals



Reporting relationships: Reporting
relationships give rise to the classic notion of
supervisor and subordinate.
Financial arrangements: Individuals are linked
by being part of the same financial entity, such as
that defined by a particular budget category or
profit-and-loss statement.
Physical Layout: links are created between
individuals when they share the same office, floor,
building, or site.
Product Development
Organizations
Regardless of their organizational links,
particular individuals can be classified in
two different ways: according to their
function and according to the projects
they work on.
Product Development
Organizations
 A function (in organizational terms) is an area
of responsibility usually involving specialized
education, training, or experience.
 Regardless of their functions, individuals
apply their expertise to specific projects.
 In product development, a project is the set
of activities in the development process for a
particular product.
Functional & Project
Organizations
In functional organizations, the
organizational links are primarily among
those who perform similar functions.
In project organizations, the
organizational links are primarily among
those who work on the same project.
Matrix Organizations
 The matrix organization was conceived as a
hybrid of functional and project organizations.
 In the matrix organization, individuals are
linked to others according to both the project
they work on and their function.
 Typically each individual has two supervisors,
one a project manager and one a functional
manager.
Variants of the matrix
organization
 Heavyweight project organization
 Lightweight project organization.
A heavy weight project organization
contains strong project links.
Various Product Development
Organizations
Choosing an Organizational
Structure
 The most appropriate choice of organizational
structure depends on which organizational
performance factors are most critical to
success.
 Functional organizations tend to breed
specialization and deep expertise in the
functional areas.
 Project organizations tend to enable rapid
and effective coordination among diverse
functions.
Choosing an Organizational
Structure
 How important is cross-functional integration?
 How critical is cutting-edge functional
expertise to business success?
 Can individuals from each function be fully
utilized for most of the duration of a project?
 How important is product development
speed?
Characteristics of Different
Organizational Structure