05 - Concept Generation
05 - Concept Generation
05 - Concept Generation
CONCEPT GENERATION
Developed in collaboration with Gavin Zau.
EXHIBIT 1 An exist ing hand-held nailer lor the prolessional market. (Courtesy Senco
Products .)
The president of a tool manufacturing cornpany i:ommissioned a team lo
develop a new hand-held nailer for the high-end consumer market. One of sev-
eral currently available pneurnatic tools for the professional market is shown in
Exhibit 1. The mission of the team was to consider broadly alternative product
concepts, assuming only that the tool would employ conventional nails as the
basic fastening technology. After identifying a set of customer needs and estab-
lishing target product specifi cations, the team faced the following questions:
What existing solution concepts, if any, could be successfully adapted for
this application?
What new concepts might satisfy the established needs and specifications?
What methods can be used to facilitate the concept generation process?
THE TA5K OF CONCEPT GENERATION IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
A product concept is an approximate description of the technology, working
principIes, and form of the product. It is a concise description of how the prod-
uct will satisfy the customer needs. A concept is usually expressed as a sketch or
as a rough three-dimensional model and is often accompanied by a brief textu-
al description. The degree to which a product satisfies customers and can be suc-
cessfully commercialized depends to a large measure on the quality of the under-
lying concepto A good concept is sometimes poorly implemented in subsequent
development phases, but a poor concept can rarely be manipulated to achieve
commercial success. Fortunately, concept generation is relatively inexpensive
and can be done relatively quickly in comparison to the rest of the development
process. For example, concept generation had typically consumed less than 5
percent of the budget and 15 percent of the development time in previous nail-
er development efforts. Because the concept generation activity is not costly,
there is no excuse for a lack of diligence and care in exccuting a sound concept
generation methodology.
The concept generation process begins with a set of customer nceds and tar-
get specifications and results in a set of product concepts from which the team
will make a final selection. The relation of concept generation to the other con-
cept development activities is shown in Exhibit 2. In most cases, an effectivc
development tearn will generate hundreds of concepts, of which 5 to 20 wiIl
merit serious consideration during the concept selection activity.
Good concept generation leaves the team with confidence that the full space
of alternatives has been explored. Thorough cxploration of altcrnatives early in
the development process greatly reduces the likelihood that the team wiIl stum-
ble upon a superior concept late in the development process or that a competi-
tor will introduce a product with dramatically better performance than the prod-
uct under development.
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CHAPTER 5: CONCEPT GENERATlON 79
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