It is a presentation which gives you idea about the concept generation in the field of Product development.

1. Aksh
M. Tech First Year
Tool Engineering

2. What we have to produce already decided
 After identifying the customer needs, we have to
produce the product which fulfills their needs.
 Common problems faced by concept generating team;
 1) Is there any existing solution concepts, if any, could
it successfully installed?
 2) If not, what new concepts might satisfy the
established needs and specifications?
 3) What methods can be used to facilitate the concept
generation process ?

3. Concept Generation
 How to generate an idea /concept ?
 Example:
 OYO Rooms Service,
Oyo Room Service Stanely Bostitch Nailer

4. Problems faced during their implementation.

5. The activity of concept Generation
 A product concept is an approximate description of the
technology, working principles & form of the product.
 A concept is usually expressed as rough 3-D model or
often accompanied by a brief textual description.
 Concept generation is an integral part of the
concept development phase .

7. Reasons to gave importance to Concept
generation process
 The degree to which a product satisfies the customers
need depends upon the quality of the underlying
concept.
 A good concept is sometimes poorly implemented, but
a poor concept never leads to achieve commercial
success.
 Concept generation is relatively inexpensive and can
be done relatively quickly in comparison to the rest of
development process.

8. .
 Abraham Lincoln example of Axe and tree cutting.
 The concept generation process begins with set of
customer needs.
 We must take care of customer needs, expectations
and satisfaction from product.

9. A good concept leaves the team with
confidence
 Common dysfunction exhibited by development team
during concept generation.
 1) Consideration of only one or two alternatives.
 2) Failure to consider carefully the usefulness of
concepts employed by other firms in related amd
unrelated products.
 3) Involvement of only one or two people .

10. .
 4) Ineffective integration of promising partial
solutions.
 5) Failure to consider entire categories of solutions.
 A structured approach to concept generation reduces
the incidence of these problems by encouraging the
gathering of information from many disparate
information sources

11. Five step method

12. Five step method Contd….
 As, mentioned in the table concept generation is
breaks down into simpler sub problems
 Solutions concepts are then identified for the sub-
problems by external and internal search procedures
 Classification trees and concept combination tables
are then used to systematically explore the space of
solution concepts and to integrate the sub problems
solutions into a total solution
 This presentation of the method is focused primarily
on the overall concept of new product, however the
method can be utilized for several different type of
development procedures/ concepts

13. Step 1: clarify the problem
 Clarify the problem consists of developing a general
understanding and then breaking down the problem
into sub problems , if necessary
 The mission statement for the project needs list and
the preliminary product specifications are the ideals
input to the concept generation process.
 Team involved in both identifying the customer needs
and in the setting of the target product specifications

14. Example: of design a better hand held
roofing jailer
 Some of assumptions in team mission statement
were:
 1) The nailer will use nails
 2) The nailer will be compatible with nail
magazines on existing tools
 3)The nailer will nail through roofing shingles into
wood
 4) The nailer will be hand held

15. .
 Based on these assumptions, the team had
identified the customer needs for hand-held nailer
 1) The nailer inserts nails in rapid succession
 2) The nailer is light weight
 3)The nailer has no noticeable nailing delay after
tripping the total

16. Decomposes a complex problem into
simper subproblems
 Many designs are too complex to solve as a single
problem and can be usefully divided into the several
simpler sub problems
 Like design of complex problem document copier can
be thought of as a collection of more focused design
problems
 In some cases, however the design of problem can not
be divided into sub problems
 Like designing a paper clip may be hard to divide into
sub problems.

17. Divide a problem into simpler sub problems is called
problem decomposition
 First step; represent it as a single black box operating
on material, energy and signal flows.

19. .
 The next step in functional decomposition is to divide
the single black box into sub functions to create a more
specific description
 The each sub function is further divided
 The process of decomposition is continue until the
members of team agree that each sub function is
simple enough to work with
 At this stage the goal is to describe the functional
elements of the product without implying a specific
technological working principle for the product
concept

20. Some useful techniques for getting started are
 1) Create a function diagram of an existing product
 2)Create a function diagram based on an arbitrary
product concept already generated by the team or
based on a known sub function technology
 3) Be sure to generalize the diagram to the appropriate
level of abstraction
 4)Follow one of the flows and determine what
operations are required

21. Functions diagram are not unique
 In some cases it is much difficult to identify material ,
energy and signal flows.
 In such cases, a simple list of the product without
connections between them is often sufficient
 Functional decomposition is most applicable to
technical problem, but it can be applied into non
technical problems

22. .
 Functional decomposition is only one of the way from
several possible ways to divide a problem into simpler
subproblems
 Other approaches are
 Decomposition by sequence of user actions
 Decomposition by key customer needs
 # Focus initial efforts on the critical sub
problems

23. Step: 2 Search Externally
 External search is aimed at finding existing solutions
to both the overall problem and sub problems,
identified during the problem classification step
 Implementing an existing solution is usually quicker
and cheaper than developing a new solution
 Liberal solution use of existing solutions allows the
team to focus its creative energy on the critical sub
problems

24. .
 External search for solutions is essential an
information gathering process
 First expand the scope of the search by broadly
gathering information
 Secondly focus the scope of the search by exploring the
promising directions in more detail
 Too much of the either approach will make the
external search inefficient

25. .
 There are at least five good ways to gather information
from external sources
 1) Interview lead users
 2)Consult experts
 3)Search patents
 4)Search published literature
 5)Benchmark related products

26. Step3:Search internally
 Internal search is the use of personal and team
knowledge and creativity to generate solution concepts
 The search is internal in that all of the ideas to emerge
from this step are created from knowledge already in
the possession of team
 This activity may be the most open ended and creative
of any in new product development

27. Four guidelines are important both
individual and group search
 1) Suspend judgment
 2)Generate a lot of ideas
 3)Welcome ideas that may seem infeasible
 4)Use graphical and physical media

28. Both individual and group sessions can be
useful
 Hints for generating solution concepts
 1) Make analogies
 2) Wish and wonder
 3) Use related stimuli
 4) Use unrelated stimuli
 5) Set quantitative goals
 6) Use the gallery methos

29. Step:4 Explore systematically
 As a result of external and internal search activitiesthe
team will have collected tens or hundreds of concept
fragments- solution to sub problems
 Systematic exploration is aimed at navigating the
space of possibilities by organizing and synthesizing
theses solution fragments
 The classification tree helps the team divide the
possible solutions into independent categories

30. .
The concept
classification
tree is used to
divide entire
space of possible
solutions into
several distinct
classes which
will facilitate
comparison and
pruning

31. The classification tree provides atleast four
benefits
 1) Pruning of less promising branches
 2) Identification of independent approaches to the
problem
 3) Exposure of inappropriate emphasis on certain
branches
 4) Refinement of the problem decomposition for a
particular branch

32. Concept combination table
 The concept combination table provides a way to
consider combinations of solution fragments
systematically
 Potential solution to the overall problem are
formed by combining one fragment from each
column

34. Reflect on the solutions and the process
 Although the reflection step is placed here at the end
for convenience in presentation, reflection should in
fact be performed throughout the whole process
 Questions to ask include
 Is the team developing confidence that the solution
space has been fully explored?
 Are there alternative function diagram ?
 Are there alternative ways to decompose the problem?
 Have external sources been thoroughly pursued ?
 Have ideas from everyone been accepted and
integrated in the process

35. .
 In my opinion concept generation is the most important
step in the process of product development, as , it provides
us a space to explore our ideas to new heights and think
creatively to keep the product beyond the expectations of
customer.