Design products

It s no secret that product designers heavily influence life-cycle costs for their products. The ability to control cost declines sharply once the design has taken shape. However, management processes in many companies ignore this simple fact of life. In the rush to market, they fall short in considering product cost and material availability in advance of introduction. This is especially important in new technology products or products requiring infrastructure investment in the form of new plants and production equipment. 

An extreme example has been the U.S. defense industry. Product functionality has traditionally reigned supreme over the cost of the weapon system. As one might expect, this has led to highly capable, but very costly, weaponry. Because new weapon programs have been governed by cost plus contracts, there has been little discipline over this process. In fact, the way profits are calculated, higher cost means higher profits in many cases. 

In an attempt to deal with this irony, the Department of Defense introduced cost-as-an-independent-variable (CAIV). This mouthful, developed by the math-centric defense engineering community, means cost is a design criterion on a par with technical capability. Under CAIV, a high-performing, but over-cost, system no longer meets the specification. 

More and more companies team in developing new products. Several companies provide important components. If any falters, the entire development project is subject to delays. Such delays may mean a competitor blazes the trail into the market and months, or even years, of profitable sales are lost. Many a new product has been held up or rendered unmarketable by excessive costs or absence of key components. Even if recovery is feasible, nothing can drive up cost as much as a hurried push to acquire vital components. 

In Chapter 27, we ll describe techniques for both product or process development that reduce cost and pain once the technology is introduced. 

More and more companies team up in developing new products. Several companies provide important components. If any falters, the entire development project is subject to delays. Such delays may mean a competitor 

One feature of many commodity chemicals is that they are essentially intermediates used in the production of a wide range of consumer products. It was once suggested that the per capita rate of production of sulphuric acid was a measure of a country s prosperity, although the consumer demand for sulphuric acid itself is almost zero. Similarly styrene, most of which is converted into polystyrene, is hardly a saleable product in the retail market. The exception, on the other hand, is the market for materials that are finally utilised as fuels many of which are distributed to the final consumer following various degrees of polishing . Even so, the greatest demand for fuels comes from the electrical supply industry which dominates the market, and not from individual consumers. 

In general, the required production rates of these more sophisticated materials are orders of magnitude less than those of the commodity materials referred to earlier. Some will be made in dedicated plant but many others may be manufactured in multi-product plant, which present new problems in the scheduling of efficient production. These include  

If n were equal to unity, it would imply that the annual production or utilisation value of all the components considered was approximately constant, a somewhat striking situation  

Edwards and Instone(5), have reviewed the manufacture and use of the particulate products which, as they describe it, are made by the fast moving consumer goods industry and used by consumers around the world. It is claimed that all the products of this sector have the following common features  

It seems fairly clear that, if such knowledge of formulation and processing can lead to new and improved products, then the potential commercial returns are very high indeed. 

Identifying market and technology Generating alternate concepts Investigations and solutions Evaluation and selection Detailed design 

Alternate product ideas Investigations and solutions Evaluations and selection 

Identify market and technology Generate alternate product concepts 

5 Evaluation, Selection, and Business Plan Multifactor optimization Finance, return, and risk Business plan References 

The manager of a truck manufacturing company was shown a screw that cost five cents to make and sold for 30 cents. He asked What happens if that screw breaks The workers explained it was a vital part of the engine and that without it the truck wouldn t work. The manager then proposed to raise the price of that screw to 100. The employees were appalled, but the manager explained that the manufacturing price should not determine the product price the perceived benefit of the clients should. 

Polyblends are mostly used in the domain of engineering polymers. The first and most prominent one is Noryl (a blend of PPO with styrene), where styrene contributes workability and economics. Polycarbonate appears in many combinations (PC with ABS, PC with PBT). In 1987 the use of polyblends already reached 250,000 tons in the United States, comprising one third of the consumption of all engineering polymers, at a rate of growth 2 to 3 times that of regular polymers. 

The major use of polyblends is in transportation (50 to 60%) the rest is in domestic and office appliances, and electronics. The following provides a partial list of useful polyblends  

PPO/HIPS (Noryl) offers a combination of toughness, endurance at high temperatures and improved workability. 

PC/ABS (Cycoloy or Bayblend) has the enhancement of low temperature impact strength, improvement of workability and favorable economics. 

PC/PBT or PC/PET alloys (Xenoy) combines high impact strength and resistance to chemicals. 

---

A number of products designated GRAS are being scmtini2ed by the FDA because of advertisements and claims made by producers or manufacturers of these products. Statements that indicate that feeding such products improve animal performance may require substantive data to support such claims in the future. 

Static friction decreases with an increase in load, and the static coefficient of friction is lower than the dynamic coefficient. The tendency to creep must be considered carefliUy in FEP products designed for service under continuous stresses. Creep can be minimized by suitable fillers. Fillets are also used to improve wear resistance and stiffness. Compositions such as 30% bronze-fiUed FEP, 20% graphite-filled FEP, and 10% glass-fiber-filled FEP offer high PV values ( 400(kPa-m)/s) and are suitable for beatings. 

After the hair is bleached it has an uimatural straw-like color and is then dyed to the desired tone with either a semipermanent or a permanent hair color product. The dye products designed to color bleached hair to a natural looking blonde shade are called toners. 

R. S. Busk, Magnesium Products Design, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1987, pp. 150—151. 

R. S. Busk, Magnesium Product Design, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1987 Annual Took ofASTM Standards, ASTM B80, ASTM B107, ASTM B90, American Society of Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, Pa., 1992. 

In cases of all but intravenous adininistration, dosage forms must make the active moiety available for absorption, ie, for dmg release. This influences the bioavailabiUty and the dmg s pharmacokinetic profile. Ideally the dmg is made available to the blood for distribution and elimination at a rate equal to those processes. Through technological developments dmg product design can achieve release, absorption, and elimination rates resulting in durations of activity of 8—12 hours, ie, prolonged action/controlled release dmg products (21,22). Such products improve the compliance rate of dmg usage by patients. 

Intravenous aqueous injections provide an excellent means of achieving a rapid therapeutic response. Parenteral product design, eg, vehicle and other excipient selection, as well as choice of route of adrninistration, can prolong therapeutic activity and increase onset times. Thus, oily solutions, suspensions, or emulsions can be adrninistered by subcutaneous or intramuscular routes to create prolonged effect, ie, depot injection (28). 

Product design factors overall part size shape complexity critical dimensions weight limitations potential for parts integration assembly requirements secondary operations Materialfactors... 

Eastman Kodak has identified 10 core competencies and developed a process for their management and utilization within the company (29). Similarly, Eaton Corporation selected seven core technical competencies, ranked them in importance, assessed their importance vs the known state-of-the-art for the industry, and developed action plans to extend the life of each (30). Eaton subsequently found the company could bring to market products designed with proven building blocks, thus minimizing risk and the need for additional capital equipment. In addition, the competencies were found to be reservoirs of proprietary advantage that had not previously been put to work. 

Cosmetics are products created by the cosmetic industry and marketed directiy to consumers. The cosmetic industry is dominated by manufacturers of finished products but also includes manufacturers who seU products to distributors as weU as suppHers of raw and packaging materials. Cosmetics represent a large group of consumer products designed to improve the health, cleanliness, and physical appearance of the human exterior and to protect a body part against damage from the environment. Cosmetics are promoted to the pubHc and are available without prescription. 

The type of chloroprene polymers used is perhaps best illustrated by the variety of special products, designed for adhesive appHcations, that Du Pont has developed. These are described ia Table 8. Standard polymer grades are also often used, especially to modify adhesive properties and to reduce cost. 

Wageningen University and Research Centre Product design and Quality management group, PO Box 8129, 6700EV Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail kasper.hettinga wur.nl... 

In order to quantify the sometimes intangible elements of variability associated with the product design and the safety aspects in service requires an understanding of risk . The assessment of risk in terms of general engineering practice will be discussed next. This will lead to a better understanding of designing for quality and reliability, which is the main focus of the book. 

Designing for robustness has also been associated with the DFM guidelines (Russell and Taylor, 1995). Robust design has different meanings to different engineering communities. For example, the three descriptions below focus on three different but connected aspects of product design ... 

Note that the squared relationship which was initially used to model the degree of difficulty in obtaining more capable tolerances for a given manufacturing route and product design is being returned by the power law. Similarly, a relationship between the process capability index Cp and q for the components analysed is shown in... 

CA is primarily a team-based product design technique that, through simple structured analysis, gives the information required by designers to achieve the following ... 

Example - determining the failure costs for product design... 

Finally, the main benefit as far as competitive business performance is concerned is the potential for reduction in failure costs. Studies using CA very early in the development process of a number of projects have indicated that the potential failure costs were all reduced through an analysis. This is shown in Figure 2.47, where this potential failure cost reduction is shown as the difference between pre-CA and post-CA application by the teams analysing the product designs. 

Adequate configuration control of product design and processes issues... 

---