omparing and contrasting the different viewpoints they provide on design. ( based on summaries )

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Journeys in product development

All companies ought to master the art of product design in order for them to remain relevant in the highly competitive market. This article addresses a general overview of product development and design which then builds an outlook on the development of systematic design and a hypothesis on the growth of design as a practice. Further, the article touches on the development of product practices of a number companies which then offers a comparison with own philosophies. This article concludes by examining different theories that have been advanced over time.

Product development process is a technical and elaborative process that is prerequisite to bringing a new a new business idea to a market readiness state. Design takes three forms namely original, adaptive and variant design. The design process may as well be classified as the disciplines of designs that cut across various engineering fields such as mechanical, electrical, architectural, industrial, food science, material, furniture, road/bridge, and aerospace. Any product goes through one such designs process during its development. Companies assume a development process that is different from one another and no best development process can be singled out. This process takes three development phases namely understanding the market opportunity, developing a concept, and implementing the concept.

Some of the companies that employ modern development process include Xerox Corporation which follows a systematic path of defining market attack plan and technology, defining product and deliver technology, designing the product, demonstrating the product, delivering the product, and delighting customers. Other companies such as Microsoft Corporation have to weather a high competitive market cycle while others such as Raychem Corporation have products that exist in development process much longer than anticipated. This results in difficulty when it comes to forecasting the needs and wants of customers. On the other hand, some companies such as Ford Motor Company employ complex development process whose methods this article does not cover while some companies such as use very technical Raytheon Corporation use very technical development processes. The methodological designs and theories evolve with each passing day as new developments come.

Why study the design process

The main focus of this article is the establishment and identification of tools that would help in developing designs that are efficient without taking into account the type of product being developed. Some of design problems may arise and should be effectively solved in order to come up with an appealing end product. The important feature design problems apply to any form of design problem may it be mechanical, software, construction projects, or electrical. Some of the factors that that determine the failure or success of a product include production, business, and product design.

This article further highlights the importance of studying the design process as it is the management and organization of people together with the information they grow the process of development of a given product. The success of the whole process of design is measurable in regard to quality of the final product, time required to come up with the product, the cost incurred to make the final product, the total expenses of the final product, and the eventual quality of the product. It becomes important to pay consideration to early phases as cost is committed at this moment of design process. Concurrent engineering encompasses all stakeholders in the design process emphasizing both concern for whole process and the design of the product.

All products have a life cycle that begins with establishing a need and ending at retirement. This article is principally concerned with design process planning development in engineering requirements, phases of product design, and conceptual design. The mechanical design process is geared towards a process where a particular solving problem is solved which then transforms a given problem into a desirable final product. The identifiable design problems have various solutions that are considered satisfactory. The identification process entails taking seven actions namely establishing the need, understanding, generating, evaluating, deciding, and communicating.

Engineering design

Engineers might get jobs at various institutions and work stations and assume divergent roles such as designing new products, developing a new concept, designing specialized facilities that can be used by a certain group of people, and so forth. The engineering process has three main elements namely designer, client and the user. Engineering design basically entails a methodical, intellectual oriented process which involves generation, evaluation and specifying designs for the devices, process or systems. This form of design is meant of tackle difficult engineering design problems as they are usually open-ended and ill structured. One of the best ways of learning an engineering design is by articulation what one knows and applying the skills.

One of the definitions that are closely relatable to our engineering design requires the designers to offer a description of the organization of the device, its function, the structural components of the device, and how it works. Engineering design has evolved from traditional use of drawings and texts to represent fabrication specification to concurrent engineering which demands that manufacturing specialists and designers concurrently and collectively design artifacts together. Fabrication specifications are an integral part of design engineering as they provide a basis for evaluating how well a given design is in line with its inventive design aims. It is worth noting that these specifications emerge from the design of the requirements which further result from the ability to transform the initial client’s objectives into requirements. What should be emphasized, therefore, is the need to maintain communication among stakeholders as designing is a social process that necessitates human interactions. To come up with good engineering design, however, requires good management of the design project.