PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Prof. Safwan Altarazi
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
By Prof. Safwan Altarazi
 Product Design and Development
Karl T. Ulrich, Steven D. Eppinger, Maria C. Yang
7th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2020.
Chapter Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Product Development Process and Organization
3. Opportunity Identification
4. Product Planning
5. Identifying Customer Needs
6. Product Specifications
7. Concept Generation
8. Concept Selection
9. Concept Testing
10. Product Architecture
11. Industrial Design
12. Design for Environment

13. Design for Manufacturing and Supply Chain

14. Prototyping
Outline
■ Electric Toothbrush
■ Introduction: What is Industrial Design?
■ Assessing the Need for Industrial Design
■ The Impact of Industrial Design
■ The Industrial Design Process
■ Management of the Industrial Design Process
■ Assessing the Quality of Industrial Design
Electric Toothbrush
■ What make the commercial success of an electric toothbrush

Technological compatibility:
Physical interface:
Maintenance:
Brushing styles:
Desirability:
Brand consistency:
Ergonomics:
Introduction
■ What should a design care about?
functionality, aesthetics, ergonomics, durability, manufacturability, cost,
marketability, and ultimately the value to customer.
■ For many manufacturers, industrial design has historically been an
afterthought.
■ Today, a product’s core technology is generally not enough to ensure
commercial success!
■ Today, industrial designers incorporated scientific principles of streamlining
into their designs, creating aerodynamic curves, groove lines, and wing tails
that glamorized speed and technological progress.
■ Newly available manufacturing materials such as injection molded plastics
and aluminum allowed industrial designers to not only improve on existing
functionality but also change how products could be designed.
Good design is a simple one, and is
■ Innovative
■ Makes a product useful
■ Aesthetic
■ Make a product understandable
■ Unobtrusive (neither decorative objects nor works of art)
■ Honest
■ Long-lasting
■ Thorough down to the last detail
■ Environmentally friendly
■ As little design as possible.
What Is Industrial Design (ID)?
■ What should a design care about?
functionality, aesthetics, ergonomics, durability, manufacturability, cost,
and marketability, safety, and ultimately the value to customer.

■ Bauhaus (a German artistic movement) sought to unify art, craft, and

technology, resulting in design principles that could be applied to any
product.
Assessing the Need for Industrial Design

■ Exhibit 11.2
How Important Is Industrial Design to a Product?
■ Most products on the market can be improved in some way or another by good
ID.
■ All products that are used, operated, or seen by people depend critically on ID
for commercial success.
■ Hence, ID can be assessed in two dimensions: user experience and aesthetics.
■ User experience encompasses how comprehensively a product meets all of a
user’s needs, including emotional as well as functional, and relates to its
usability, user interface, human factors, and ergonomics as well as subjective
qualities (“Does the product make the user happy when she turns it on?”).
■ Aesthetic needs cover: Is visual product differentiation required?, How
important are pride of ownership, image, and style?, and will an aesthetically
appealing product motivate the team?
Assessing the
importance of
industrial
design for the
Philips
ProtectiveClean
toothbrush
 Question
■ What types of products might not benefit from ID involvement in the development process?
■ Industrial designers focus their attention on the outward features of a product. They have expertise
in the areas of ergonomic needs and aesthetic needs. The ergonomic needs address the ease of
use, ease of maintenance, and safety issues. The aesthetic needs address the external appearance
of the product. Therefore, products that would not benefit from ID involvement must not be have
these needs. These products would demonstrate the following attributes: no user interface, very
little maintenance required, no safety concerns from a design standpoint, and not seen by the
customer.
■ One product group that meets these criteria are products that are internal components to a larger
end user product, i.e., a hard disk drive for a computer or a drive shaft for an automobile. The
end user of the computer or the automobile would not experience any benefits of ID. However, if
the assembly worker is defined as the user, even these products would benefit from ID. One goal
may be to make the component easier to assemble into the product by making the component
features indicate the correct orientation. I conclude that any product group will benefit from ID
involvement in the development process on some level if the group considers all the interactions the
product will have over its lifetime
 Exercise
■ Develop several concept sketches for a travel mug. Try designing the mug form both "from the inside
out" and "from the outside in". Which is easier for you?
■ A travel mug is very simple and is obviously a product for which industrial design has a huge
importance. Its "technology" is very basic and the design aspects that relate to the user interface
are the key to the product success. Ergonomics are central because you want the product to be as
unobtrusive, easy to handle, and safe to use as possible. Aesthetics also play a major role in
differentiating the product. When I started drawing the sketches I could hardly think of an "inside-
out" approach. I was basically paying attention to the shape of the product, to its look and feel,
and to the ease of using and carrying it. The "outside-in, function-follows-form" seemed to be the
appropriate one. However, when I came to nailing down the design I realized that I had to be sure
that these "forms" fulfilled several functions. These functions are basically: Mug holds liquid, Mug
allows drinking, Mug is portable, Mug prevents liquid from spilling. This list of functions could be
translated into a series of physical elements that formed the mug: Hole to pour the liquid and
container, Hole, straw, air vent...to allow drinking, Handle or, carrying device, Cover.
I checked the designs using this "inside-out/form-follows function" approach to be sure all the
functional requirements were covered. In fact, the different designs in the market could be graded
according to how many and how well these requirements were met, independently of their user-
interface. So, both approaches were complementary and played a role in helping me to
understand the product requirements and come up with concept sketches.
The Impact of Industrial Design
■ In a study of 300 publicly traded companies, McKinsey & Company
observed a strong link between a firm’s design competency and its
business performance. Firms that were in the top 25 percent of design
competency were significantly faster than others at increasing revenues
(32 percent) and total returns (56 percent) over a five-year period. This
trend was noted across the medical field, consumer products, and
financial services, implying that “good design matters” regardless of type
of firm (Sheppard et al., 2018).
Is Industrial Design Worth the Investment?
■ Not easy question to answer!
■ ID costs: direct cost, manufacturing cost, and time cost.
■ ID benefits: increased product appeal, greater customer satisfaction, strong
brand identity, and product differentiation, increased market share
■ Studies:
– An MIT study found a significant correlation between product aesthetics
(as rated by practicing industrial designers) and the retail price for each
product, but no correlation between aesthetics and manufacturing cost.
– Open University in England Study also suggests that investing in ID
yields a positive return.
■ For a specific project decision, performing simple calculations and sensitivity
analyses can help quantify the likely economic returns from ID.
Question
■ By what cause-and-effect mechanism does ID affect a product's
manufacturing cost? Under what conditions would ID increase or
decrease manufacturing cost? What about profitability?
How Does ID Establish a Corporate Identity?

■ How do you identify an organization?

■ Corporate identity is derived from “the visual style of an organization.”
In details, it emerges primarily through what people see. Advertising,
logos, uniforms, buildings, packaging, and product designs all contribute
to creating corporate identity.
■ In product-based companies, ID plays an important role in determining
the company’s identity
■ When a company’s products maintain a consistent and recognizable
appearance, visual equity is established.
■ Brands that have effectively used ID to establish visual equity and
corporate identity through their product lines: Apple, BMW
Question
■ The term visual equity is sometimes used to refer to the value of the
distinctive appearance of a firm’s products. How is such equity obtained?
Can it be "purchased" over a short time period, or does it accrue slowly?
■ Some of the ways visual equity is obtained are:
– Coordinating the design of all of a firm’s products through a central
industrial design department.
– Employing a single, visionary individual to coordinate the designs of a
firm’s products, even when actually performed by outside firms.
– Establishing a "design guide" with specifications for materials, colors,
or other aspects of "design language."
■ ​Visual equity cannot generally be purchased quickly. It requires that a
pattern of consistency be established in the marketplace over time
Exercise
■ List some firms that you feel have a strong corporate identity. What
aspects of their products, including ID, helped to develop this identity?

Mercedes-Benz Hewlett-Packard

The grill on a Mercedes Although Hewlett-Packard

automobile has retained (HP) does not have a
some of the same strongly recognizable
characteristics for decades. "design language" like
The "star" logo is also a Mercedes, its products
strong point of consistency. create a consistent
Such design elements are impression of being highly
one way of establishing and engineered, rugged, and
maintaining a corporate powerful
identity.

Apple Computer

Apple creates its corporate identity in part by using industrial design that is fun,
different, and even whimsical at times. Apple also employs a consistent design
language that includes "surface interest" (bulges, tears, dimples, patterns);
consistent semantics for controls and displays; and sculpted forms.
The Industrial Design Process
■ Industrial designers should participate fully on cross-functional product
development teams.
■ Within these teams, engineers will generally follow a process to generate
and evaluate concepts for the technical features of a product. In a similar
manner, most industrial designers follow a process for designing the user
experience and aesthetics of a product.
■ The ID process can be thought of as consisting of the following activities:
1. Investigation of customer needs.
2. Conceptualization.
3. Preliminary refinement.
4. Further refinement and final concept selection.
5. Control drawings or models.
6. Coordination with engineering, manufacturing, and external vendors.
Management of the Industrial Design Process
■ Industrial design is typically involved in the overall product development
process. Yet, to explain the timing of the ID effort it is convenient to
classify products as:
– technology-driven products (e.g. hard-disk drive): the role of ID is often
limited to packaging the core technology
– user-driven products (e.g. office chair): ID considerations will be more
important than the technical requirements
■ Tesla as an example?

11.9
Timing of Industrial Design Involvement
■ Typically, ID is incorporated into the product development process during
the later phases for a technology-driven product and throughout the entire
product development process for a user-driven product.

■ 11.10
■ 11.11
Assessing the Quality of Industrial Design
■ Below are five categories for evaluating a product. We use these categories to
develop specific questions, allowing the product to be rated along five
dimensions.
1. Usability
∙ Is the grip comfortable for a wide range of hand sizes?
∙ Can the buttons be easily reached while holding the product in the same hand?
∙ Is it easy for the user to determine how to turn the product on and off?
∙ Is it easy to complete tasks using the screen interface?
2. Emotional Appeal
∙ How does the car door sound when slammed?
∙ Does the hand tool feel solid and sturdy?
∙ Does the appliance look good on the kitchen counter?
Assessing the Quality of Industrial Design

3. Ability to Maintain and Repair the Product

∙ How easy and obvious is it to clear a paper jam in the printer?
∙ How difficult is it to disassemble and clean the food processor?
∙ How long does it take to change the batteries in the remote controller?
4. Appropriate Use of Resources
∙ How well were resources used to satisfy the customer requirements?
∙ Is the material selection appropriate (in terms of cost and quality)?
∙ Is the product over- or underdesigned (does it have features that are
unnecessary or neglected)?
∙ Were environmental/ecological factors considered?
Assessing the Quality of Industrial Design
■ 5. Product Differentiation
∙ Will a customer who sees the product in a store be able to identify it
because of its appearance?
∙ Will it be remembered by a consumer who has seen it in an advertisement?
∙ Will it be recognized when seen on the street?
∙ Does the product fit with or enhance the corporate identity?
■ 11-12 demonstrates this method by showing results for the ProtectiveClean toothbrush.
Exercise
■ Select a set of five competing products (e.g., kitchen supplies, tools, office
supply, gifts) and assess each one in terms of the five ID quality
categories. Which product would you purchase? Would you be willing to
pay more for it than for the others?
 END OF

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN