Concept Generation in Product Design

Meaning
 A product concept is an approximate description of the
technology, working principles, and form of the product.
The degree to which a product satisfies customers and can
be successfully commercialized depends to a large
measure on the quality of the underlying concept.
 The concept generation process begins with a set of
customer needs and target specifications and results in a
set of product concepts from which the team will make a
final selection.

1. Clarify the problem. Understand the problem and decompose
it into simpler subproblems.
2. Search externally. Gather information from lead users,
experts, Search patents, Search published literature, and
Benchmark related products.
Lead User - already invented solutions.
Search Patents - rich and readily available source of technical
information containing detailed drawings and explanations of
how many products work.
Search published literature - includes journals; conference
proceedings; trade magazines; government reports; market,
consumer, and product information; and new product
announcements.
Benchmark related products - functionality similar to that of
the product, also reveals the existing concepts that have been
implemented to solve a particular problem.

3.Search internally. Use individual and group methods
to retrieve and adapt the knowledge of the team.
4. Explore systematically. Use classification trees and
combination tables to organize the thinking of the
team and to synthesize solution fragments.
5. Reflect on the solutions and the process. Identify
opportunities for improvement in subsequent iterations
or future projects.

Required Inputs to the Creation Process
• Form (the physical thing created, or, for a service,
the set of steps by which the service will be created)
• Technology (the source by which the form is to be
attained)
• Benefit/Need (benefit to the customer for which
the customer sees a need or desire)
Technology permits us to develop a form that
provides the benefit.

New Product Concepts and the
New Product
Need Form
Technology New
Product
“C”=
Concepts
C
C
C

The Soft Bubble Gum Example
• Benefit: “Consumers want a bubble gum that
doesn’t take five minutes to soften up.”
• Form: “We should make a softer, more flexible
bubble gum.”
• Technology: “There’s a new chemical mixing
process that prevents drying out of food and
keeps it moist.”
Why would each of these taken individually not be a
product concept?

Concept Generation Techniques
Six types of concept generation techniques are as
follows:
Needs Assessment
Scenario Analysis
Group activity
Attribute Analysis
Relationship Analysis and
Lateral search

Needs Assessment
 Need assessment focuses on understanding current and
future needs of the market place.
 Matching these problems with appropriate solutions that
the company can offer through its products will generate a
set of product concepts
 Accomplished though: sales visits, customer service calls,
focus group customer suggestion/complaint box

Scenario Analysis
• It is the process of estimating the expected value of a portfolio
after a given change in the values of key factors take place.
• “Extending” vs. “leaping”
• Techniques:
– Follow “trend people”/”trend areas”
– “Hot products”
– Prediction of technological changeover
– Cross-impact analysis :attempts to connect relationships
between events and variables.

Group activity
• Group Creativity Methods/Brainstorming
• Principles of Brainstorming:
– Deferral of Judgment
– Quantity Breeds Quality
• Rules for a Brainstorming Session:
– No criticism allowed.
– Freewheeling -- the wilder the better.
– Nothing should slow the session down.
– Combination and improvement of ideas.

 SCAMPER - checklist is used as a stimulant when the
fl ow of ideas begins to fall off during the
brainstorming activity.
 The questions in the SCAMPER checklist are applied
to the problem in the following way:
 Read aloud the first SCAMPER question.
 Write down ideas or sketch ideas that are stimulated by
the question.
 Rephrase the question and apply it to the other aspects
of the problem.
 Continue applying the questions until the ideas cease to
flow.

Concept Generation in Product Design

Attribute Techniques
• Attribute analysis is a category of techniques that employs
product characteristics (attributes) to generate a new product
ideas.
• Basic idea: products are made up of attributes -- a future
product change must involve one or more of these attributes.
• Three types of attributes: features, functions,
benefits.
• Theoretical sequence: feature permits a function which
provides a benefit.
• 2 approaches within this category are,
1. Determinant gap analysis,

Determinant gap analysis
 Determinant gap analysis is referred to as the attribute rating (AR)method
because distinct attributes are given and rated.
 Once a map is constructed , judgment is necessary to identify the most
appropriate and meaningful gaps.
 AR product position map (based on attribute ratings by customers)
 One technique used in conjunction with determinant gap analysis is factor
analysis
 Factor analysis is a advance statistical technique that can be applied to
large sample sizes of the respondents/customer.
 It will group multiple characteristics into broad underlying categories
of characteristic and establish underlying dimension prevalent within a
market place.

Eg: Tyre product- based on attribute
 Offering are organized by
a price dimension (high vs
low price)
expected mileage
dimension (high vs low
mileage expected.).
 The lower price options
represent the most feasible
option and the most likely
new product concepts.

Perceptual gap analysis
 Perceptual gap analysis is referred to as the overall similarity
(os) method because evaluation are made based on OS between
product offerings or potential product offerings.
 OS perceptual map (based on overall similarities ratings
by customers)
 Take special note that the axes of the map are not labeled.
 To ascertain what these gaps represent, an assessment of the
product offerings is made to identify the common
characteristics associated with the group offerings. If achieved,
may present very meaningful new product concepts

Eg: Tyre-based on overall
similarities
 Take special note that the
axes of the map are not
labeled.
 Common characteristics
shared:
A,B,H – Upper left
E & G – Upper right
D & F – lower right
 Identify the common
characteristics and present
new product concept.

Relationships Analysis
•
Force combinations of dimensions (features, functions,
and benefits) together.
Techniques:
– Two-dimensional matrix
– Multidimensional (morphological) matrix
– Conjoint analysis
Two-dimensional example: person/animal insured and
event insured against.
Household cleaning products example used six
dimensions:
– Instrument used, ingredients used, objects cleaned,
type of container, substances removed, texture or
form of cleaner
•
•
•

Two-dimensional
matrix
-identifying two key
elements/dimension
and listing that
specifically correlate
to each of the
dimension results in a
set of product
concepts.

Morphological Analysis
 Morphological Analysis is a technique that encourages a
designer to consider the combination of two seemingly
unrelated concepts.
 The technique is best implemented by creating a
Morphological Chart, with two axes of information. Each
axis describes an attribute, design objective or some
function of the design.

Dimensions : Flavor, size, packaging and caffeine content.
 Flavor- regular, fruit and mint
 Size – eight ounce,12 ounce,16 ounce, 20 ounce
 Packaging – Bottle and can
 Caffeine content – caffeinated and decaffeinated
 Applying morphological analysis:
48 new product concept (3*4*2*2) are generated.
Ex: ice tea

Trade-Off (Conjoint) Analysis
• Put the determinant attributes together in combinations or
sets.
• Respondents rank these sets in order of preference.
• Conjoint analysis finds the optimal levels of each attribute.
For Ex:
ZOOM, WATER RESISTANCE
SCREEN SIZE represent a set of
attributes to compact camera.

ZOOM SCREEN SIZE WATER
RESISTANCE
Ranking as
Estimated by
Model
2x 2"' inches L1 4
32"' inches
L2 10
2x 3"' inches L1 8
16
3"' inches L2 15
5X 2"' inches L1 2
L2 1
5X 3"' inches L1 5
L2 11
10X 2"' inches L1 9
10X 2"' inches L2 14
* 1 = most preferred
, 18 = least preferred.
Conjoint Analysis Input: Camera Example

Conjoint Analysis: Relative Importance of
Attributes
0 20 40 60 80 100 %
ZOOM
WATER RESISTANCE
SCREEN SIZE
59.8%
34.6%
5.6%

Lateral Search Techniques
 Main aim of this technique it to force thinking away from
the current product offerings or attributes of the current
product offering in order to conceive a new product idea
 These techniques attempts to encourage “Out of box
thinking”.
 Four Techniques:
 Competitor Review: is a review of what a competitors are
doing relative to product offering.
Product attributes, Product offerings and other initiatives that
make competitor product popular to be identified and
incorporated in our product concept.

• Avoidance Techniques: to perform the technique, discussion begins on a to a
particular topic and then question why or why not is posed. This continues
until the team is satisfied with the preferences and corresponding ideas
generated.
• Mind Maps: Considered to be a more intuitive/natural/organic way to record
ideas, allowing for the creator to revisit different branches, and add as
necessary as new ideas grow from existing ones.
A graphical or visual way of organizing ideas stemming from a single word.
The ideas branch radially outward from a single word, into various sub-
sections which can branch out further as necessary.
• Studying “big winners”: attempt to brainstorm the reason underlying the
reason for the success for the product,people, things and so on.

Concept Generation in Product Design

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