Summary
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.
• In most cases, an effective development team will generate hundreds of concepts, of which 5 to 20 will merit serious consideration during the subsequent concept selection activity.
• The concept generation method presented in this chapter consists of five steps:
1. Clarify the problem. Understand the problem and decompose it into simpler subproblems.
2. Search externally. Gather information from lead users, experts, patents, published literature, and related products.
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.
• Although concept generation is an inherently creative process, teams can benefit from using a structured method . Such an approach allows full exploration of the design space and reduces the chance of oversight in the types of solution concepts considered. It also acts as a map for those team members who are less experienced in design problem solving.
• Despite the linear presentation of the concept generation process in this chapter, the team will likely return to each step of the process several times. Iteration is particularly common when the team is developing a radically new product.
• Professionals who are good at concept generation seem to always be in great demand as team members. Contrary to popular opinion, we believe concept generation is a skill that can be learned and developed.