Chapter 2: Ideas

Prepared by: Marshahida Mat Yashim

@Fakulti Kejuruteraan Kimia, UiTM(T) Kampus Bukit Besi
Course Learning Outcomes

 Students should be able to apply the basic principles of product design

and development
Human Ideas

 Once the specification of target product have identified, the product

designers and developers need to gather some ideas to meet the
specifications.
 The large number of ideas can come from variety of sources. Many ideas
comes from individuals; customers, competitors, consultants, members of
product development team.
 In the case where the ideas from above sources groups is insufficient,
additional chemical ideas are required.
 Once enough pool of ideas generated, the product development team
required to sort the best idea.
 The major source is the members of
product team itself
Sources of
Ideas The second source is the new
products potential customers

The third areas to look for ideas are

literature
Source of Ideas: members of product team

 Inside the team itself, they may have representative who have used
and frustrated with the product to be replaced .
 They will be very quick in seeing advantages and disadvantages of
any new concepts.
 Since their contribution to the new ideas is very useful towards their
career, they will be an excellent source.
Source of Ideas: Potential Customers

 These customers are those will be directly benefit from the new
product’s characteristic
 The most important customers are lead customers, because they will
frequently have tried to modify the products and improving its utility.
 They will try often identify new ways to meet specific needs.
 Part of the customers are competitors who always interested in
products that meet the same need. Some clues of marketing effort
from competitors may be useful
Source of Ideas: Literature

 The trade literatures are the best source of information about current
products beyond the earlier source of ideas
 The peer-reviewed literature of scientist and engineers can provide
secrets of new products
 The chemical patent literature are also valuable. However since
chemical patent literature is normally incomplete, some seeing them
as less valuable sources of ideas
Source of Ideas: Others

 Other persons who can be good sources of idea are product experts,
private inventors and consultants.
 Experts may be a retire from organization or competitor company.
 Private inventors important for innovations beyond the boundaries of
current thinking strategies. Ideas from private inventor may be
practical but important to spark new product ideas
 The most effective ways of collecting ideas is
Collecting of to ask the target sources to write ideas down
Ideas
If the ideas related to chemical process, the
To get more ideas from ideas might be in the form of flow sheet
the sources, the
brainstorming session
will be fruitful If the ideas include chemical synthesis,
mechanism and synthetic routes are helpful
 Collecting of Ideas: Brainstorming

Brainstorming session will work best under a few rules:

Use a common Generates ideas Deliberately avoid Encourage
format freely ownership eccentricity
• All sources group • Do not be worried • Do not worry with • Do not squash
cover the same with the problems which idea is weirdness, even if
topic or at least from the same whose the suggestion is
more/ less the ideas impossible
same
Chemical Ideas

 In producing chemical products, we need to know our target

compounds.
 In the case where we do know the target compounds, we can use
common chemical methods to generate the ideas.
 The methods are:
1) Natural-Products Screening
2) Combinatorial Chemistry
Chemical Ideas: Natural-Product Screening

 Take advantages from the various active ingredients presents in nature

 Plants, animals, fungi, marine organism and microbes are among the
rich sources of new chemical species with specific functions
 The pharmaceutical industry has benefited from this method of
generating ideas especially by mimicking nature
Chemical Ideas: Natural-Product Screening

 Aspirin
 Caffeine
 Stevioside
 Sunillin
 Bullet-Proof Vest from
natural polyamide
Natural Chemical Screening: New
microorganism

 Seeking new microorganism from the soil sample. Only 0.1% of the
bacteria and fungi in the soil have been tested
 Culturing the microorganism of which known activw ingredients inside
them. Culturing can be done through chemical treatment to modified their
DNA
 Through culturing within an existing colon of targeted pathogen, the new
strain of microbes that is producing new toxic can be determined (discovery
of penicillin)
 Finally, chemical structure of the potential toxin through chromatography
and nuclear magnetic reasonance (NMR)
Natural Chemical Screening: Active Chemical
Species in Plant

 Only 5000 species of millions species of flowering plants have been

extensively investigated for its active ingredients
 The potential aquatic organisms has also recently discovered
(discordomolide & marinovar)
Natural Chemical Screening: Traditional
Medicine

 Example of components in foxgloves p rescribed to cardiac patients to

regulate and strengthen their heartbeat
 Flavanone (topical an-inflammatory) extracted from tree bark
 As of now, the chemical screening benefits from traditional medicine
purpose are still at surfaces due to cultures
 Started in 1990s, the interest in active ingredients from the investigation
of natural product has lost.
 It is due to the discovery of synthetic chemistry offered better prospect.
Chemical Ideas: Combinatorial Chemistry

 Uses robotic technology to provide first screening of thousands even

million compounds which may have the desired properties
 The chemical compounds discovered using this method can provide
quick ideas for the product development
 The core idea behind this method is to identify possible active
ingredients or molecular fragments and test all of them robotically in
all possible combinations
Sorting the Ideas

Removing
Prepare a list Organize ideas
redundancy of
of all ideas into categories
the ideas
Screening the Ideas
Scientific Maturity

Engineering ease

Minimum risk

Low cost

Safety

Low environment Impact