Development of a design audit tool for smes

However, it is indicative of the issues considered important in design and NPD literature. Finally, it should be remembered that both the NPD success factor work and many of the established design processes are derived from or targeted at large firms.

Thus, it was important to moderate evidence from literature based on findings from the exploratory case work. Each company was in the initial stages of a new product development project and was selected from a shortlist of 20, based on the nature of the product, the degree of technical complexity, location and keenness to collaborate.

All four companies produced technically complex goods, sold mainly to commercial buyers. Data was taken from project documents, visit reports, notes from telephone conversations and observation. Company A was established in , and was a leading manufacturer of precision optics and diagnostic instrumentation. The project aimed to replace a 15 year old product with a low risk, low cost update to increase sales and respond to competitive action. Engagement with the project lasted around 20 months and included several visits, attendance of meetings, telephone conversations and a wrap-up interview.

As a family owned firm, company B had grown through innovativeness, practicality and technical excellence in the paper collation industry. The family culture pervaded the organisation, with many design decisions deferred to the owner. The new interface project addressed usability issues, whilst also tackling component obsolescence.

Engagement with the project lasted 22 months and included several visits, attendance of meetings, telephone conversations and a wrap-up interview. Established in the s, company C was a world leader in the design and manufacture of pneumatic ventilation systems. The company had recently seen significant changes in the organisation following a corporate takeover.

The project aimed to update a mature product which was facing threats from cheaper competitors. Engagement with the firm lasted around 14 months and included several visits, attendance of meetings, telephone conversations and a wrap-up interview.

The new product was envisaged as an upgrade to an earlier product. The project suffered major delays to technical difficulties on related products which required skilled and scarce engineering resources. However, this resulting hiatus presented the team with the opportunity to review the project objectives and undertake new market research. Engagement with the company lasted around 18 months, including visits, interviews and telephone conversations. Summary of cross case observations This phase of the research aimed to identify recurring or common themes which might influence the development of a design audit tool.

Design management In all four cases, it was clear that the product strategy was a relatively weak link and reactive to competitive, technological and market developments. All four firms exhibited little ongoing generation of new product ideas and as a result, there was little evidence of structured project selection: the next project tended to select itself. In companies A, B and C, scarce resources meant that only one project could be conducted at a time.

In company D, poor aggregate project management resulted in horse-trading for valuable resources. Two of the companies were struggling to implement a viable new product development process. Company C was implementing the process mandated by their parent company. With the exception of Company B, all four firms struggled to balance the need for managerial control against the problems of increased bureaucracy. There were different approaches towards teamwork in the four companies. Company B, as the smallest company, was the most informal, and as a result displayed the best communication between team members.

There was little evidence of proactive risk management in any of the companies and as a result, all of the projects overran, due to technical or market difficulties. Finally, project management skills were generally weak, with little ongoing management of time, spend or unit cost targets.

Poor segmentation in company A resulted in product cannibalisation and ultimately several late feature changes to the new product. The project at company C stalled due to the inability of the design team to clarify the needs of the new market. Company D initially viewed the market as a homogenous whole, but later recognised the value of clear segmentation to support the collection and interpretation of user needs. There was also little evidence of effective competitive analysis, with an over reliance on comparison of brochure specifications in companies A and B.

Company C viewed the competitors products as technically inferior, and thus ignored anecdotal feedback about consumer preferences.

When users were involved, the companies all gained valuable information. In company A, user observation led to the development of snap on covers, an original feature which helped differentiate the product.

In all firms, there was little user or customer involvement at later stages of the design process. Finally, weak market analysis impacted the generation of effective specifications.

In companies A and C, where separate market and technical specifications were produced, there was later conflict and negotiation. Company D however benefited from clearly defining the product sub-systems and interfaces. In part, this might be explained by inexperienced marketing staff whose roles were more aligned to sales support.

To a limited extent, all companies divergently explored a range of alternative concepts, although in most cases, the teams had clear preconceptions over product functionality and technology. Perhaps the greatest divergence was evident in proposals for product aesthetics. In company D, several design changes resulted from concept evaluation with real users. Only company B had a clearly defined product platform strategy, to ensure maximum product variety to customers, whilst minimising complexity in the company.

Company A had the opportunity to establish a common product architecture, but instead developed a unique product to satisfy unit cost and timescale targets. There was little use of design for manufacture approaches in any of the cases. Only in company D were unit cost targets established and managed throughout the design process.

Timing of industrial design involvement was critical in all cases. In case C, the designer was involved too late to make a real difference. In companies B and D, the designers remained involved throughout the design process.

Thus, despite attractive concept designs, the preproduction prototypes were large and unattractive. As a result, the designer was recalled to remedy this situation. Companies A, B and D all benefited from investing in professional design expertise. Finally, company C perceived little benefit, due to the narrow scope of their original design brief.

This confirmed their view that design is expensive and unnecessary in a market where technology is believed to provide the commercial advantage. Implications for the audit tool The exploratory cases supported many of the factors identified in literature.

In addition however, they also pointed to specific issues of concern in managing and executing design in small firms. Company B were perhaps the most accomplished, with the others displaying a range of capabilities. Collectively, the cases confirmed the marginalisation of good design issues and identified many opportunities for improvement to the design process. This supported the need for a tool which captures good design issues in a form which is accessible to managers in SMEs.

The projects were typically reactive, with little proactive exploration of new ideas for new markets. Firms A, C and D were trapped in a vicious circle of delays to previous projects producing delays in the current project. Each of the companies had some form of structured product development process, although they were all struggling to balance excess bureaucracy against sufficient managerial control. Weak project management was also evident through poor teamwork and cross functional disagreements.

They all displayed weaknesses in their marketing and user focused activities. These deficiencies were evident in poor product specifications and uncertain requirements. There was some divergence in concept design, although concept selection was largely internally focused with little user involvement. There was scant evidence of effective early prototyping or design for manufacture, resulting in frequent late design changes. Aesthetic and ergonomic concerns were important for all projects, and industrial design specialists were involved accordingly.

Product appearance or usability generally provided differentiation, whilst reliability, durability and technical performance were generally viewed as order qualifiers. Observations of good and not so good practice enabled the identification of several practices which should be addressed in such the audit tool. Even the strongest company exhibited several areas where design practice could be improved.

The four firms displayed weaknesses not just in design execution but also in design management. This confirmed the need for the design audit to emphasise design execution issues, whilst also addressing basic design management concerns. This prototype tool was then developed and refined through a process of application, review and modification. During this stage, the audit tool underwent four major changes of its architecture and presentation and around 50 smaller changes to phrasing etc. This model forms the structure of the audit tool, which develops these activities in the form of simple maturity grid The model aims to visually distinguish between the design process and the product development process.

The activities chosen reflect a synthesis of issues from multiple strands of literature and case evidence. These are clustered under three headings, which are visually represented as overlapping phases of a design process: requirements capture; concept design; and implementation.

Evidence from cases supported these findings, but also highlighted the need for ongoing involvement of users in the design process, strong competitive analysis and effective market segmentation. Cases specifically emphasised the importance of user focused concept selection. Cases also indicated the importance of simultaneous architecture, aesthetic and ergonomic design drawing together technical and industrial design specialists. In the exploratory cases, all firms were weak at design for manufacture and assembly.

Activities: Design management Whilst not the primary focus of the audit tool, it was evident that the managerial activities had to be included to address weaknesses observed in case examples and reflect the dominance of these issues in previous studies. Managerial activities were clustered under two headings: project generation and project management.

Project management issues relate to a specific project and were given slightly more emphasis, due to clear weaknesses observed here in the exploratory cases.

The cases highlighted the need for both risk management and effective design reviews. Cases also indicated the importance of monitoring key design targets such as unit cost. Teamwork was of utmost importance in literature. Involvement of specialist designers was not considered a success factor in the NPD literature, but received significant emphasis in the design domain. Evidence from the exploratory cases confirmed its importance in addressing resource limitations.

Product strategy and selection however were viewed as essential in many previous studies. The design audit tool The final audit tool is constructed in the form of a maturity grid [25] of 24 Key Design Activities.

The process audit classifies performance against 4 maturity levels none, partial, formal and culturally embedded. Descriptions of performance encompassed 5 key ingredients: benefits perceived, people involved, timing, degree of formalisation and the level of expertise.

This schema helped to ensure consistency in description of performance across activities. The process audit is presented in two forms; summary grids and detailed grids. The summary grid captures the performance of each activity in a simple statement, designed to be succinct and to the point. The detailed grids expand on this heading to provide a richer description. An example summary grid is illustrated in figure 7.

An example detailed grid is illustrated in figure 8. Summary grids for the whole audit tool are included in Appendix 1. Workshop participants are first introduced to the range of activities and asked to identify any which in their view might be missing. Participants are then asked to score current performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Various strategies for scoring current performance have been tried. In early applications, individual participants scored each activity alone, and later collated responses to identify activities for further discussion.

This approach was effective in highlighting differences in opinion, but was also divisive. In later applications, participants were split into sub-groups to discuss each activity, using the summary and detailed grids to agree scores for both current and desired future performance.

These sub-groups then shared views and discussed alternative priorities. This approach proved more useful in generating practical outputs. The workshop culminates with the capturing and prioritisation of actions for improving the design process. Responses to the audit tool were collected in three ways; verbal feedback from participants, independent researcher observation and structured feedback in the form of a simple questionnaire. The researcher-observer was present in each case to provide independent feedback on the audit tool, its content and the delivery process.

The questionnaire captured responses to overall value as well as insight into the utility and usability of each aspect of the process. An example of questionnaire feedback is provided in figure 11, for Case P.

The combined feedback also aimed to determine the degree to which the audit tool could be followed without facilitation, potential errors of omission or commission and recommended modifications.

In early applications, the questionnaire was completed directly following the workshop. In later cases, the questionnaire was circulated a few days after the workshop to enable a short period of reflection on behalf of the participants.

Finally, there was a follow up meeting with the company sponsor at least 6 months after the audit tool application, to determine longer term impact and perceptions towards the audit tool. Due to space constraints, application of the design audit tool will be described in four of the case studies, reflecting different stages of the audit tool evolution. Their products were differentiated through technical performance and UK manufacture.

The products were renewed every years, with mostly incremental developments. The firm did little technology research, adapting proven technologies. The audit was subsequently delivered in an afternoon workshop with 6 members of the product development team. The audit was presented as a single grid comprising activity title and definition and maturity definitions over 4 levels. This included both a concise headline, as well as more detailed descriptions figure 9.

Here, a wide range of scores were generated for each activity. The design audit tool was then used to score activities in a more structured way. In several cases, there were still differing opinions over current performance. However, the detailed descriptions enabled these differences to be discussed to arrive at a consensus opinion. This demonstrated the benefits of the maturity grid in comparison to a simple numerical scale, in generating consistent and useful results.

However, participants commented that it was excessive to score each activity twice. Six activities were chosen for further discussion, based on consistently low scores or clear opportunities for improvement: market learning; setting design targets; product specification; prototyping to reduce technical risks; maintaining the design vision; and structured development process. The maturity grids were then used as a focal point for discussion, with a view to identifying potential actions for improvement.

Tangible outputs included a written summary of the discussion, focusing specifically on actions for improvement. As an alternative, it may have been better to rank the activities in order of importance or progress directly to the summary grids. In addition, they provided customers with a full after sales offering. The newly appointed engineering director son of the company founder became interested in the design audit with a view to increasing the competitiveness of their products and improving the new product design process.

Although technically leading, their product range was beginning to suffer from new market entrants, and as a result had falling gross margins.

Following an initial meeting with senior management to clarify objectives, the complete design audit was applied over two workshops, each lasting a whole day. Both workshops were attended by 10 members of staff representing all facets of the business. In the first workshop, the cross functional team assessed a current product to establish strengths and weaknesses, potential improvements and key differentiators.

Product producibility and usability were both identified as priorities for improvement. Outputs from this stage informed the process audit, which targeted design for manufacture, user involvement and product specifications as key areas for improvement. The delivery of the process audit was revised, to combine both summary and detailed grids. This reduced repetition and improved overall understanding.

As a result of both workshops, the company revised its product development process, to address the issues raised. The company also implemented several design changes to the product under assessment; addressing aspects of benefit to both the company and their customers. Feedback was extremely positive, with utility, usability and feasibility all scoring highly. The audit tool successfully raised awareness of good design issues and encouraged the participants to take tangible action.

Both the product and process audits were judged as useful, although the product audit was marginally preferred. The management team was delighted with the outputs of the workshop series and further training in design for manufacture for low volume manufacture was requested. Case companies remained pre-occupied with perennial managerial issues, such as teamwork and communication.

In later applications, by first assessing the design of an existing product, discussions on the design process then became more useful. The maturity grid is able to capture a range of practice, described in language which is familiar to the practitioner. It was assumed that the increased granularity and precision of the maturity grid would result in a high degree of consensus between different respondents. However, despite fairly precise descriptions of performance at each level of the process audit, individuals in companies still have greatly differing opinions over current performance.

This highlights the inherent unreliability of any single respondent assessment and demonstrates the value of the tool in generating discussion and raising awareness. It also indicates that the tool would be inappropriate for benchmarking performance between companies. The product audit draws on a wide array of sources, including product aesthetics, design for manufacture, and ergonomics. Due to space limitations, these are not expanded upon here.

The product audit has proven successful in encouraging a more user centred view of product design. Before using the product audit, good design is often viewed parochially in terms of profitability or producibility.

By taking a more structured view, with an emphasis on customer perceptions, greater emphasis is given to the softer elements of the design mix, such as aesthetics and ergonomics. Implications for practice Companies must continually introduce new products to market, to remain profitable in the face of competitive activity and technological change.

Effective products should improve the satisfaction of consumers and users, whilst also resulting in improved business performance.

There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence of the value of good design. However, many small companies face specific challenges in the design of new products, often resulting in technically adept products which are either difficult to use or are not desirable to the target audience. Conversely, an attractive product may be let down by poor design for manufacture or weak technical performance. These product deficiencies are indicative of a lack of awareness of the importance of good design and the limited adoption of good design practices.

Recognising these issues, the design audit has aimed to capture key aspects of the design process which are essential and are often underperformed. Specifically, the audit tool aims to balance the need to consider managerial concerns against the importance of good design, the key design activities and the characteristics of well-designed products.

Before application of the design audit, there was no evidence of structured reflection or evaluation of design performance in any of the case companies. There was little evaluation of how well design work was being performed.

Throughout this research, a range of small-companies were involved, largely from the industrial goods sector. In additional to the creation of the design audit, these various engagements resulted in a number of general impressions about the way in which product design is executed and managed.

As a result, there was an over- reliance on managerial gut-feel, occasionally calibrated by experience in the industry. Efforts to really understand the motivations of users were often half- hearted, and served to provide justification to decisions already made. Several companies expressed reservations in involving customers to assess original concepts due to concerns over intellectual property and commercial confidence.

However, this fear was often misguided as rapid competitive response was in most cases unlikely and the benefits of user feedback far outweighed any potential risks. As a result, they erred towards the safer projects, which were typically incremental developments of existing offerings.

This was especially evident in the companies which had undergone significant organisational change. With each change, the priorities were reassessed, the strategy changed and the flow of new products was disturbed. As a result, the need for each new project to succeed increased and the desire to take on risks correspondingly reduced.

This was manifest by the general reluctance of the development teams to estimate the likely unit cost of a new product. These external skills potentially offer many small companies the opportunity to enter new markets and develop more radical products than their internal resources would be capable of.

It was apparent in several companies that time and to a lesser extent spend were not the critical factors. Almost without exception, the more important requirement was the need to deliver high quality products to market. Cooper ]. Moreover, there is an implication that it is the management of this process which is critical. The outputs of many NPD success factor studies seem to suggest that a well managed process is the key route to success.

The need for that process to deliver exceptional products is often overlooked. To be truly useful to practitioners, some sense of how this superiority is to be achieved is essential. There is thus an opportunity for new product development success factors to be derived from a product as well as a process perspective.

There is also some evidence that the factors quoted are incomplete. Many empirical studies for example have confirmed the positive relationship between a design orientation and commercial success [Hertenstein ]. Others have more specifically identified industrial design as a key contributor [Gemser ].

However, these elements are overlooked in almost all NPD success factor studies. By emphasising the importance of managing the product development process, the need for that process to deliver exceptional products is often overlooked. It is evident from the exploratory cases and from the application of the audit tool that to develop excellent products, there also needs to be sufficient emphasis on the design process.

Product development research needs to be more explicit in distinguishing between these interdependent, but essentially different elements. By making this distinction explicit, NPD research could reflect practice more accurately and provide greater benefit to practitioners by offering a more comprehensive approach.

Even though NPD has been studied for almost half a century, many of the lessons are only gradually being adopted in practice [Cooper ], especially in SMEs [Brown et al ]. Even when managers are aware, changing product development practices can be challenging when inhibited by ingrained stereotypical behaviour and training [Karlsson ].

Much of this literature is functionally biased and is relatively inaccessible to practicing industrialists. Maturity approaches to assessing process capability provide a way of capturing such good practice principles in an accessible form which leads to action for improvement. A number of maturity based tools have been devised for product development issues. However, existing approaches have focused largely on managerial concerns.

Thus, this research sought to develop a design audit tool to capture these good practice issues in a form accessible to industrialists. It does not seek to cover these individual issues with great depth — a whole research programme for example could have addressed the generation of just a product usability audit. The goal was to produce a usable tool, which meant that a number of difficult judgements had to be made about which activities should be included and which omitted.

Whilst it would be possible to criticise the tool for errors of omission, the depth and content of the final audit tool are consistent with the aims of the research; to capture good practice issues in a form accessible to industrialists. Process based research approaches aim to result in an empirically supported tool or process for use in a practical context.

This tool should comprise an underlying model of the phenomenon under consideration, combining concepts, categories, overall architecture and where appropriate relationships between elements [Blessing et al , Platts ].

Thank you for submitting a report! Submitting a report will send us an email through our customer support system. Submit report Close. All rights reserved. Recommended Articles Loading References New product development success factors in American and British firms. The new product development process: past evidence and future practical application: part 1. Success through design. A design research methodology. Management of New Products. Design for Manufacturability Handbook. Effective design management for small businesses.

Extending continuous improvement to the new product development process. This inductive development enabled the generation of a robust audit tool through intervention in small firms to improve design practices. The resulting audit tool is designed for use in a multifunctional workshop setting. Typical outputs from application include the generation of action plans for improvement in future performance.

This audit tool is based around a model of good design that explicitly distinguishes between management and design related activities in NPD. The audit tool has succeeded in encouraging managers to pay greater attention to the design related elements of NPD. This complements the satisfaction of managerial goals typically emphasized in many NPD processes.

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