Product Design & Development

Lecture # 9

Dr M Murtaza Khan

Today We Talk About

Mountain Bike ?

$1500

$5700 (Yeti Bikes)

Links:
http://www.mountainbike.com/mountainbikecom
www.mountainbikeprices.org

Tod
ay
We
Tal
k
Ab
out

Outline of Lecture
Identifying Customer Needs > Concept

Development
Next Step
Products Target Specification
Interpretation of Customer Needs using specific

units
Prepare
Prepare List
List of
of
Metrics
Metrics

Collect
Collect
Competitive
Competitive
Benchmarking
Benchmarking

Set
Set Ideal
Ideal and
and
Marginal
Marginal
Targets
Targets

Reflect
Reflect on
on the
the
Process
Process

Introduction
Specialized

Bicycle Components is interested in

developing a front suspension fork for a mountain bike
market. Development team of the Company has identified
customer needs.

Video

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-descend-on-a-mountainbike

Introduction
Specialized

Bicycle Components is interested in

developing a front suspension fork for a mountain bike
market. Development team of the Company has identified
customer needs.
No

Need

Imp

1 The Suspension

reduces vibrations to the hand

2 The Suspension

allows easy traversal of slow, difficult terrain

3 The Suspension

enables high speed descents on bumpy trails

4 The Suspension

allows sensitivity adjustment

5 The Suspension

preserves the steering characteristics of the bike

6 The Suspension

remains rigid during hard cornering

7 The Suspension

is lightweight

8 The Suspension

provides stiff mounting points for the brakes

9 The Suspension

fits a wide variety of bikes, wheels and tires

is easy to install

10 The Suspension

Introduction
No

Need

Imp

11 The Suspension

works with fenders

12 The Suspension

instills pride

13 The Suspension

is affordable to an amateur enthusiast

14 The Suspension

is not contaminated by water

15 The Suspension

is not contaminated by grunge

16 The Suspension

can be easily accessed for maintenance

17 The Suspension

allows easy replacement of worn parts

18 The Suspension

can be maintained with readily available tools

19 The Suspension

lasts a long time

20 The Suspension

is safe in a crash

Looking at these needs, they simply leave too much margin for
subjective interpretation. For this reason, development teams establish a
specifications, which spell out in precise, measurable detail what the
product has to do. Product Specifications do not tell the team how to
address the customer needs, but they do represent unambiguous
agreement on what the team will attempt to achieve in order to satisfy the

Introduction
The team now faces several challenges:

How could the relatively subjective customer needs

be translated into precise targets for the remaining
development effort?

How could the team and its senior management agree

on what would constitute success or failure of the
resulting product design?

How could the team develop confidence that is

intended product would garner a substantial share of
the suspension fork market?

How could the team resolve the inevitable trade-offs

among product characteristics like cost and weight?

Solution
Specifications !

Determine

Product

Establishing Target Specifications

Target Specifications are preliminary

specifications set by the development team as

goals. Later these specifications are refined
based on the limitations of the product
concept actually selected.

Prepare
Prepare List
List
of
Metrics
of Metrics

Collect
Collect
Competitive
Competitive
Benchmarkin
Benchmarkin
g
g

Set
Set Ideal
Ideal and
and
Marginal
Marginal
Targets
Targets

Reflect
Reflect on
on
the
Process
the Process

Step 1 Prepare List of Metrics

How to define specifications of products
Metrics

to
define
degree
to
which
manufactures think product will satisfy customer
needs

Relationship between needs and metric is

central to entire concept of specifications.

Building a Computer :
User wants fast processing :
CPU

Clock Speed -> M/G Hz

User wants to store large files:

Hard

disk -> G/T bytes

Step 1 Prepare List of Metrics

Contemplate needs in turn and consider
precise, measurable characteristic of the product
to which degree the product satisfies the user need

Ideal case, one and only one metric for each need.
In practice, this is frequently not possible.

In general, remember:
1.

Metrics should be complete. (1 metric per need)

2.

Metrics should be dependent, not independent variables (mass is

dependent , manufacturing material is independent).

3.

Metric should
measureable)

4.

Some needs cannot be easily translated into quantifiable metrics.

(instill pride ?)

5.

The metrics should include the popular criteria for comparison in

the marketplace. (1000 bumps/sec ? , use monster rating)

be

practical.

(should

be

observable

and

Step 1 Identifying Metrics

Need n Metrics

1 reduces vibrations to the hand

Hidden Text

No

Attenuation by Shocks

allows easy traversal of slow,

difficult terrain

Spring Load

enables high speed descents on

bumpy trails

Attenuation of Shocks

4 remains rigid during hard cornering Spring Load

5 is lightweight

Mass

6 Is easy to install

Time to Assemble

fits a wide variety of bikes, wheels

and tires

8 Works with fenders

Wheel Size, Steer Tube Length

Fender compatibility

Step 1 Example of List of Metrics

Metric
No

Need
Nos

1,3

Attenuation from dropout to handlebar at 10 Hz

dB

2,6

Spring Preload

1,3

Maximum Value for the Monster

1,3

Maximum descent time on test track

sec

Total Mass

kg

Steer tube length

mm

Wheel sizes

List-inch

Maximum tire width

inches

10

Time to assemble/attach to frame

sec

10

11

Fender compatibility, Special tools for maintenance

List

11

12

Instill pride

Subjective

12

13

Unit manufacturing cost

US$

13

16,17

Time to disassemble/assemble for maintenance

sec

15

19

UV test duration to degrade rubber parts

Hours

16

20

Bending Strength (Frontal Loading)

kN

Imp

Units

Hidden Text

Metric

Step 1 Metrics Matrix

Step 1 Metrics Matrix

Step 2 Collect Competitive Benchmarking

Metric
No

Need
Nos

2,6

Metric

Imp Units

ST
Tritra

Manir
2

Rox
Tahx

Tonka
Pro

Spring Preload

550

760

500

480

Rake offset

mm

41.5

39

38

43.2

Total Mass

kg

1.409

1.385

1.409

1.222

11

Headset sizes

in

1.000

1.125

1.000

1.125

12

Steer tube length

cm

13

Wheel sizes

List

26

26

26

26

14

Max tire width

in

1.5

1.75

1.5

1.75

24

19

Cycles to failure

Cycle

500K+

500K+

500K+

330K

26

20

Bending Strength
(Frontal Loading)

kN

5.5

8.9

7.5

6.2

15 - 25 14 - 22 18 - 23 20 - 25

Step 3 Set Ideal & Marginally Acceptable

Target Specifications
Team synthesizes available information to

actually set target values for the metrics.

Two types of values are useful:
Ideal Value
Marginally Acceptable Value

Both these targets are useful in guiding the

subsequent stages of concept generation and

concept
selection,
and
for
refining
the
specifications after the product concept has been
selected.

Step 3 Set Ideal & Marginally Acceptable Target

Specifications
Practically: Five ways to express values of metrics
At Least X establishes lower bound of spec metric.

Moster rating at least 3g

At Most Y establishes upper bound of spec metric.

Mass of suspension fork at most 1.5kg

Between X and Y establishes both upper and lower bounds for

spec metric.

Spring pre-load between 450 to 800 N

Exactly X establishes the target of a particular value of a metric

with any deviation degrading performance. This type of spec is
to be avoided if possible because such spec substantially
constrain the design. (GENERALLY DISCOURAGED)

Wheel width 5 inch.

A Set of Discrete Values Some metrics will have values

corresponding to several discrete choices.

Headset size 1.0, 1.125, 1.25