Concept Selection Is an Integral Part of the Product Development Process
Early in the development process the product development team identifies a set of customer needs. By using a variety of methods, the team then generates alternative solution concepts in response to these needs. (See Chapter 5, Identifying Customer Needs, and Chapter 7, Concept Generation, for more detail on these activities.) Concept selection is the process of evaluating concepts with respect to customer needs and other criteria , comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the concepts, and selecting one or more concepts for further investigation , testing, or development. Exhibit 8-2 illustrates how the concept selection activity is related to the other activities that make up the concept development phase of the product development process. Although this chapter focuses on the selection of an overall product concept at the beginning of the development process, the method we present is also useful later in the development process when the team must select subsystem concepts, components, and production processes.