Benefit

What the product does for the customer. Benefits are solution neutral. Therefore the description of a benefit must not include any mention of how the product works.

Business Concept

A business concept is a business opportunity augmented with a complete description of the target market, an estimation of the size of the target market, the core benefit of the product and a description of how the concept will generate revenue.

Competition

A competitive product can be a product that a customer could substitute for the product under consideration or a method that the customer currently obtains the same benefits as the proposed product.

Conceptual Design

Two dimensional sketches, pictorial sketches and text are used to describe how the technology and product architecture chosen delivers the benefits of the product to the customer. Overall size, shape and method of assembling each part is defined. Broad classes of materials, and manufacturing processes have been selected for each custom part. Overall dimensions have been determined and critical tolerances have been identified but not evaluated.

Context

The context of a product is the circumstances or setting in which an object is used, and which add to its meaning.

Core Benefit

The core benefit is the most basic or fundamental benefit that the customer derives from the product.

Cost

 

Customer Needs

Customer needs are derived from customer statements about what they want the product to do. The needs describe what the product should do, not how the product meets the need. the needs are always stated as an attribute of the product. Customer statements are used to form customer needs. Customer needs are used to form engineering specifications.

Customer Pull

Customer pull refers to a product development effort that begins with an expressed customer need or desire. Cars with improved gas mileage, lighter laptop computers and cell phones with longer battery life are examples of products developed in response to an expressed customer need.

Design Brief

A formal document that lays out the constraints and objectives of the project. This document must be suitable for approval from management and distribution to design team members, people in the target market and suppliers. The design brief usually includes a product description, key business goals, primary market, secondary market, assumptions and stakeholders. More information can be found in the customer needs stage.

Design Verification

Calculations and testing of focused prototypes required to ensure that the conceptual design is capable of consistently and robustly meeting the specifications. Critical dimensions and tolerances are evaluated.

Detail Design

All information required to manufacture the product is gathered. Including, but not limited to, selection of manufacturing processes, materials, dimensions, tolerances and assembly sequence.

Embodiment Design

Selecting the standard and custom parts required to implement a design concept. The embodiment design should be sufficiently refined to allow the performance of the product to be predicted using math models.

Engineering Concept

A clearly written and visual description of a new product idea that includes its primary features, consumer benefits, a broad understanding of the technology needed and the selected product architecture to be implemented.

Engineering Specification

A precise description of what the product has to do. A specification consists of a metric and a value. A metric is a something that can be measured and the value defines an acceptable range of the metric. For example the average time to disassemble is a metric and less than 80 seconds is a value. An appropriate metric is measurable and all values have units attached.

Feature

The parts and systems of the product that deliver the benefit.

Iteration

The act of repeating a process or sub process. Iteration is a characteristic of the design process. Design teams often iterate when new information is uncovered. example of new information are cost data, performance data or customer preferences.

Kano Model

Video that explains the concept, click here!

Portfolio Architecture

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Preliminary Business Plan

A preliminary business plan is a shortened and less detailed form of a complete business plan. It usually consists of the following parts: A description of the business and the product, a description of the history of the idea, the unique selling proposition of the product, the target market for the product, any patents acquired, the competition, the market potential, expected sales, customer research results, potential distribution channels and future, measurable objectives.

Product Architecture

The strategy for laying out components and systems on multiple product to best satisfy current and future market needs.

Product Platform

A set of subsystems and interfaces that form a common structure from which a stream of derivative products can be efficiently developed and produced.

Product Opportunity

The Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) body of knowledge defines a Product opportunity as “A business or technology gap that a company or individual realizes, by design or accident, that exists between the current situation and an envisioned future in order to capture competitive advantage, respond to a threat, solve a problem or ameliorate a difficulty.”

Derivative Product

One product in a family of products that are developed from a product platform. Each product in the family is called a derivative product. Each derivative product contains unique subsystems that allow each product to satisfy the needs of a different target market.

Price

Product Portfolio

The collection of different products offered by a company.

Profit

Stage Gate Model

A stage-gate model organizes a process consisting of activities and resulting work products into a set of stages. A stage consists of a set of parallel activities. Successive stages are separated by decision points called gates, which provide objective criteria and rubrics to assess the project and the probability that it will succeed.

Standard Part

A part not designed specifically for a particular product. Standard parts can be found in many products are usually purchased from a supplier.

Technical Feasibility

Technical feasibility ensures that the considered engineering concept does not violate the laws of physics. For example, a feasible device can not deliver more energy or material than is put into the device.

Technology Push

Technology push refers to a product development effort that was begun as a search for a use for a compelling use for a new technology. Examples of products developed as a result of a technology push include personal computers, satellite radio and anti-lock brakes.