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To continuously generate profit, the existing product in the market should not remain stagnant or
else, it will simply disintegrate without the company noticing it. As years pass by, the needs and wants of the
general population varies. More and more people seek for convenient products. This paved the way for
wireless tools, instant food products, portable devices and many more. But how exactly did the company
come up with these ideas?
The answer lies in the concept generation process.
A product concept an approximate description of the technology, working principles, and form of
the product. It is a concise description of how the product will satisfy the customer needs. A concept is usually
the intersection between the company’s objective – which includes the target specification, the amount of
available resources and the target profit contribution, and the customer’s demand from the company, which
will define the function of the product.
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 consideration during the
concept selection activity.
Figure 3. Function Diagram of a handheld nailer from a functional decomposition: upper part shows the
“black box” while the lower part is the refinement showing the subfunctions
The first step in decomposing a problem functionally is to represent it as a single black box operating
on material, energy, and signal flows, as exhibited in Figure 3. Thin solid lines denote the transfer and
conversion of energy, thick solid lines signify the movement of material within the system, and dashed lines
represent the flows of control and feedback signals within the system. This black box represents the overall
function of the product.
The next step in functional decomposition is to divide the single black box into subfunctions to create
a more specific description of what the elements of the product might do to implement the overall function
of the product. The division process is repeated until the team members agree that each subfunction is simple
enough to work with.
A helpful way to create the diagram is to quickly create several drafts and then work to refine them
into a single diagram that the team is comfortable with. Some useful techniques for getting started are:
• Create a function diagram of an existing product.
• Create a function diagram based on an arbitrary product concept already generated by the team
or based on a known subfunction technology. Be sure to generalize the diagram to the appropriate
level of abstraction.
• Follow one of the flows (e.g., material) and determine what operations are required. The details of
the other flows can be derived by thinking about their connections to the initial flow.
Functional decomposition is only one of several possible ways to divide a problem into simpler
subproblems. Two other approaches are:
A. Decomposition by sequence of user actions. It is often useful for products with very simple technical
functions involving a lot of user interaction.
B. Decomposition by key customer needs. It is often useful for products in which form, and not working
principles or technology, is the primary problem.
Once problem decomposition is complete, the team chooses the subproblems that are most critical to the
success of the product. This involves a conscious decision to defer the solution of some of the subproblems.
STEP 2: SEARCH EXTERNALLY
External search is aimed at finding existing solutions to both the overall problem and the
subproblems identified during the problem clarification step. It is essentially an information-gathering
process. Available time and resources can be optimized by using an expand-and-focus strategy: first expand
the scope of the search by broadly gathering information that might be related to the problem and then
focus the scope of the search by exploring the promising directions in more detail.
There are at least five good ways to gather information from external users: lead user interviews,
expert consultation, patent searches, literature searches and competitive benchmarking.
1. INTERVIEW LEAD USERS
Lead users are those users of a product who experience needs months or years before the majority
of the market and stand to benefit substantially from a product innovation (von Hippel, 1998 as
cited by Ulrich & Eppinger)
2. CONSULT EXPERTS
Experts may include professionals at firms manufacturing related products, professional consultants,
university faculty, and technical representatives of suppliers.
3. SEARCH PATENTS
Patents are a rich and readily available source of technical information containing detailed drawings
and explanations of how many products work.
4. SEARCH PUBLISHED LITERATURE
Published literature includes journals; conference proceedings; trade magazines; government
reports; market, consumer, and product information; and new product announcements; Electronic
searches are frequently the most efficient way to gather information from published literature.
5. BENCHMARK RELATED PRODUCTS
Benchmarking can reveal existing concepts that have been implemented to solve a particular
problem, as well as information on the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.
STEP 3: SEARCH INTERNALLY
Internal search is the use of personal and team knowledge and creativity to generate solution
concepts. Often called brainstorming, this type of search is internal in that all of the ideas to emerge from
this step are created from knowledge already in the possession of the team.
Four guidelines are useful for improving both individual and group internal search:
1. SUSPEND JUDGMENTS
The imperative to suspend judgment is frequently translated into the rule that during group concept
generation sessions no criticism of concepts is allowed.
Works Cited
Ulrich, K. T., & Eppinger, S. D. (2012). Concept Generation. In K. Ulrich, & S. Eppinger, Product Design
and Development (5th ed., pp. 117-140). New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved September 4, 2018
Southern Luzon State University
College of Engineering
Industrial Engineering Department
Clarisse B. Cantos
Zeus Cklifford A. Gomez
Leechel Ella M. Recalde
September 18, 2018