Teaching Chapter 6: Product Specifications
Timing
This session is most appropriate following the session on identifying customer needs. The session could include a case discussion or could even be combined with the session on customer needs if the students are particularly conscientious about their preparation outside of class. The Honda Today Case (HBS) is a particularly good complementary case in that it asks students to set specifications for a new Honda automobile engine.
Objectives and Strategy
The process of establishing specifications may be one of the most integrative activities in new product development. Information about customer needs, competitive products, technical feasibility, and cost have to come together in order to make the best decisions. This session is therefore an ideal time to talk about functional integration in general. We also use this session to expose the students to the House of Quality and Quality Function Deployment (QFD), a method that has been widely promoted over the past few years. This session is one of several in which competitive benchmarking is discussed.
This session can also be used to explore the concept of "target costing"—using the anticipated selling price of a product to derive its target manufacturing cost.
Session Outline
Introduction/Overview
What is a specification?
Review Method
Establishing target specifications
Issues and Fine Points
Some of the subtle issues and fine points that make good topics of discussion include:
Can two metrics always be traded off against one another? (See Thought Question 6.4.)
Two kinds of benchmarking data.
During the specifications process the "must" requirements that are not expressed by customers are added in. For example, the regulatory and agency approval requirements (UL, FDA, FCC, etc.) are incorporated into the specs, even though these may not be included in the list of customer needs.
Distinction between dependent and independent variables. (See Thought Question 6.5.)
Use of models to resolve trade-offs and determine feasibility. The team can use both physical and analytical models to assess feasibility. The challenge is to establish specifications that are both challenging and feasible. The modeling effort can help to predict what will be feasible.
Example of pen writing smoothly. (See Exercise 6.1.)
QFD/House of Quality
Display the House of Quality (HOQ) from Hauser and Clausing or from an actual project.
It is an information system for displaying three or four types of data involved in the specifications process. Point out that students will benefit from knowing the jargon of the HOQ and QFD even if they pursue the same goals using a slightly different method.
Identify and describe each feature of the "house." Show how each of the information systems used in the chapter corresponds to a feature of the HOQ. We argue that the team can more easily work with the information in spreadsheet form as described in the chapter than with the special software required to generate the actual HOQ.
Competitive Benchmarking
Point out that competitive benchmarking has become a topic of considerable interest in industrial practice, but that it is largely just common sense. To create a competitively superior product, the team must know what the competition can do. Further, there are opportunities to learn specific design approaches by observing competitors’ products.
Props
No specific props are needed for this session, but the instructor may wish to bring a few products that help to illustrate some of the key points.
In-Class Illustration
Chocolate bar vs. camera.
This illustration is useful to communicate the difference between setting specs for a product that is highly constrained technically and one in which the engineers can pretty much create a product with arbitrary specifications.
First, ask students to position candy bars on the dimensions of "chocolatiness" and "crunchiness". Bring: Hershey bar, Nestle crunch, Special Dark, Dove chocolate bar, Kit Kat. Ask how you would decide where to position a new product. Generally this will depend on (1) customer preferences and (2) competitive intensity.
Now ask students to position 35mm cameras on the dimensions of "image quality" and "size". Bring various cameras (e.g., point and shoot, SLR, single-use camera, etc.). Now ask where you would position a new product. Depends on preferences, competition AND technical feasibility. Generally not possible to arbitrarily locate a product in this space (e.g., tiny and excellent image quality). This is a key difference between designing chocolate bars (and many packaged goods) and highly engineered products.
A useful observation is that one of the goals of the development process is to figure out what are the two or three key dimensions that involve the key technical trade-offs in designing a product.
In-Class Exercise
Go through the exercise of establishing specifications corresponding to the need that a pen writes smoothly (Exercise 6.1).
This session is most appropriate following the session on identifying customer needs. The session could include a case discussion or could even be combined with the session on customer needs if the students are particularly conscientious about their preparation outside of class. The Honda Today Case (HBS) is a particularly good complementary case in that it asks students to set specifications for a new Honda automobile engine.
Objectives and Strategy
The process of establishing specifications may be one of the most integrative activities in new product development. Information about customer needs, competitive products, technical feasibility, and cost have to come together in order to make the best decisions. This session is therefore an ideal time to talk about functional integration in general. We also use this session to expose the students to the House of Quality and Quality Function Deployment (QFD), a method that has been widely promoted over the past few years. This session is one of several in which competitive benchmarking is discussed.
This session can also be used to explore the concept of "target costing"—using the anticipated selling price of a product to derive its target manufacturing cost.
Session Outline
Introduction/Overview
What is a specification?
- Metric and value.
- Translation of need expressed in language of customers to a measurable attribute.
- Provides concrete goals that are both meaningful technically and will result in customer satisfaction.
- Allows the team to "keep score."
- Forces resolution of trade-offs. Setting specifications is really the first set of hard decisions the team has to make.
Review Method
Establishing target specifications
- Prepare list of metrics.
- Collect competitive information.
- Set ideal and marginally-acceptable values.
- Reflect.
- Develop technical models.
- Develop a cost model.
- Refine the specifications making trade-offs where necessary. (Use maps where possible.)
- Reflect.
- Generally can’t know in advance what will be possible.
- Need to satisfy customers, distinguish product competitively, achieve reasonable manufacturing cost, and be technically feasible.
Issues and Fine Points
Some of the subtle issues and fine points that make good topics of discussion include:
Can two metrics always be traded off against one another? (See Thought Question 6.4.)
Two kinds of benchmarking data.
- Benchmarking competitive products in terms of customers’ perceptions.
- Benchmarking competitive products in terms of technical performance.
- Will also want to gather competitive information for other reasons, like looking for detailed design approaches and evaluating manufacturing processes of competitors.
During the specifications process the "must" requirements that are not expressed by customers are added in. For example, the regulatory and agency approval requirements (UL, FDA, FCC, etc.) are incorporated into the specs, even though these may not be included in the list of customer needs.
Distinction between dependent and independent variables. (See Thought Question 6.5.)
Use of models to resolve trade-offs and determine feasibility. The team can use both physical and analytical models to assess feasibility. The challenge is to establish specifications that are both challenging and feasible. The modeling effort can help to predict what will be feasible.
Example of pen writing smoothly. (See Exercise 6.1.)
QFD/House of Quality
Display the House of Quality (HOQ) from Hauser and Clausing or from an actual project.
It is an information system for displaying three or four types of data involved in the specifications process. Point out that students will benefit from knowing the jargon of the HOQ and QFD even if they pursue the same goals using a slightly different method.
Identify and describe each feature of the "house." Show how each of the information systems used in the chapter corresponds to a feature of the HOQ. We argue that the team can more easily work with the information in spreadsheet form as described in the chapter than with the special software required to generate the actual HOQ.
Competitive Benchmarking
Point out that competitive benchmarking has become a topic of considerable interest in industrial practice, but that it is largely just common sense. To create a competitively superior product, the team must know what the competition can do. Further, there are opportunities to learn specific design approaches by observing competitors’ products.
Props
No specific props are needed for this session, but the instructor may wish to bring a few products that help to illustrate some of the key points.
In-Class Illustration
Chocolate bar vs. camera.
This illustration is useful to communicate the difference between setting specs for a product that is highly constrained technically and one in which the engineers can pretty much create a product with arbitrary specifications.
First, ask students to position candy bars on the dimensions of "chocolatiness" and "crunchiness". Bring: Hershey bar, Nestle crunch, Special Dark, Dove chocolate bar, Kit Kat. Ask how you would decide where to position a new product. Generally this will depend on (1) customer preferences and (2) competitive intensity.
Now ask students to position 35mm cameras on the dimensions of "image quality" and "size". Bring various cameras (e.g., point and shoot, SLR, single-use camera, etc.). Now ask where you would position a new product. Depends on preferences, competition AND technical feasibility. Generally not possible to arbitrarily locate a product in this space (e.g., tiny and excellent image quality). This is a key difference between designing chocolate bars (and many packaged goods) and highly engineered products.
A useful observation is that one of the goals of the development process is to figure out what are the two or three key dimensions that involve the key technical trade-offs in designing a product.
In-Class Exercise
Go through the exercise of establishing specifications corresponding to the need that a pen writes smoothly (Exercise 6.1).