Scoping
Product Development
P. M. Jadhav
1
Contents
• Introduction
• Technology ‘S’ curves
• ‘S’ curves and Product Development
• Technical Questioning
• Mission Statement
• Design Drivers
2
Introduction
• What to develop ?
• Should a new technology be introduced?
• Should the current product be refined and
tweaked to better please the customer?
• Should the product be expanded into
variant forms to more comprehensively
cover the market?
• Outsourcing vs in-house development
3
Product development projects
• Four Types
– New product platforms
– Derivatives of Existing product platforms
– Incremental improvements to existing
products
– Fundamentally new products
4
Product development projects
• New product platforms
– Hybrid cars
– Touchpad incorporated laptops
– Solar powered calculators
– Digital watches
– LED bulbs
– LED television
– Many more……
5
Product development projects
• Derivative of existing products
– Diesel Engine in a new platform
– Higher capacity (Kgs) washing machine
– Low TR room air conditioners
– Small or big display of LCD mobile phones
– Bigger size television
6
Product development projects
• Incremental improvements
– Higher mileage vehicle ( More km / Liter)
– More Megapixel camera
– Less polluting engine
– Aesthetic variants – Redesign of tail lamps,
bumpers etc.
7
Product development projects
• Fundamentally new products
– Automobile (Driverless)
– Bluetooth
– Electricity transmitters through air
– New composite material
8
Some thoughts
• In business (and in life?) winning once is not enough.
• Even if you score big, you can’t rest on your laurels. You
have to rack up repeated victories in the market, one after
the other.
• Otherwise, you become a has-been, just another business
that sparkled brightly before flaming out.
• This has been the fate of many once-successful
companies that got to the top but couldn’t stay there.
• Yet, some organizations do thrive at the top for decades
and even longer. They launch one successful business
after another, and routinely outperform their rivals.
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What’s their secret?
10
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Technology Development
Simplified Technology Transferring Technology
Development Cycle Development Cycle
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Technology ‘s’ curves
• Technological innovation time cycle and market
behavior is well characterized by ‘S’ curve
• Technological innovation typically manifest
themselves into a market along ‘S’ curve
• In case of product , the Product Metric (In case of
bulb, lumens of light output per unit watt;
efficiency) can be plotted as function of time when
each product was introduced
• Metric value will naturally fall as an ‘S- curve’ in
time
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Product evolution - technology ‘s’ curve
[Text Book]
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Product evolution - technology ‘s’ curve
[http://terrapacificusa.com/?page_id=128]
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Telecom Industry
5G Etisalat (UAE) said
it has already
tested speeds of
up to 115GBps as
part of its 5G
strategy
16
Perspective
[http://noordinary.co.nz/how-to-tell-if-your-industry-is-going-to-be-disrupted-befor.html]
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Stages of Technology ‘S’ Curve
• Lower portion
– Changes are less and widely spaced
– Not much innovation (slope)
• Middle portion
– rapid profusion of innovation (slope)
– many products are launched
– many competitors joins the market
• Top portion
– stagnation & maturity of existing product technology
– Physical laws of the process dominates and performance can not
improve further
– Few mature competitors
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Violation (?) of S curve
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Creative problem solving
The mere formulation of a problem is far more
often essential than [is] its solution, which may be
merely a matter of mathematical or experimental
skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities
to regards old problems from a new angle
requires creative imagination and marks real
advances in science – Albert Einstein
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Summary
• Technology ‘S’ Curves
• Relation between technology ‘s’ curve and
product development
• Technical Questioning
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Thank you
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