P RO D U C T D E S I G N
DEFINITI
ON
Product design is the process of creating a new
product to be sold by a business to its customers.
INTRODUCTI
ON
Product design is a long time process.
It is important to target the design programme to minimise
time and costs.
Planning is important for it to successfully complete within
allocated resources.
In a product design plan, there are many activities to be
first recognised and then coordinated.
The master plan coordinates the various people and their
mini-projects in an overall time and resource plan so that
the product design can be controlled.
The plan begins with the product design specifications.
These include a profile of the product characteristics as
defined by the consumer,
⚫ The structure and composition
⚫ Safety factors
⚫ Convenience and aesthetics
⚫ Manufacturing, processing and storage variables and
their effects on the product qualities.
FAC TO R S CO N S I D E R E D IN P RO D U C T
D ES I GN
A. Marketing factor
B. Technical factor
C. Financial factor
FAC TO R
S
1) Marketing factors
⚫ Consumer acceptability
⚫ Competitive positioning
⚫ Legal regulations
⚫ Ethical requirements
⚫ Environment
⚫ Distributor requirements
2) Technical factors
⚫ Ease of processing
⚫ Cost
⚫ Raw material availability
⚫ Reliability of product quality
⚫ Shelf life
⚫ Equipment needs
⚫ Human knowledge and skills
3) Financial factors
⚫ Costs of manufacturing and distribution,
⚫ Costs of further development
⚫ The investment needed.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
In the design, both the input variables to the process
and the output variables of the product qualities are
identified early in the developments.
The input variables are:
⚫ Raw materials: type, quality, quantity
⚫ Processing variables: types of processing,
processing conditions.
The output variables are:
⚫ Product qualities- low
and high level of
qualities
⚫ Product yields
The two main parts of product design are making
the
product prototypes and testing it.
The two important groups of people involved are the
designers (often called developers in the food industry)
and the consumers.
The prototype products are tested under the standards set
by the product design specifications, so that product
testing needs to be organised along with the product
design and the processing experiments.
STEPS IN PRODUCT DESIGN
The design activities are grouped into steps:
A. ‘Getting the feel‘
B. Screening
C. Ball-park studies
D. Optimisation
1) ‘GETTING T H E
FEEL’
The processing methods and conditions outlined in the product
design specifications are used to make the early product
prototypes.
The technical testing methods are identified which are used to
examine prototype for physical, chemical and sensory
characteristic.
The basic costing used in the company is also identified.
The target market was identified in the product concept
stage and the consumers are selected to represent this target
market.
2)
SCREENING
Screening reduces the wide range of raw material and
processing variables to the input variables affecting
important product qualities.
At this stage, the raw materials are being selected, and
the quality, availability and costs of those raw materials
are studied.
Basic total cost range for the raw materials is identified,
but it is important not to select individual materials only
on cost at this stage.
3) BALL-PA R K
STUDIES
In ball-park studies, the aim is to set the limits of the raw
materials and the processing variables which give acceptable
product qualities.
By this stage, the variables are reduced in number and their
limits are set. They are examined in factorial designs.
A factorial design is an experiment whose design consists of
two or more factors, each with possible values or "levels", and
whose experimental units take on all possible combinations of
these levels across all such factors.
In factorial designs each input variable is considered at high
and low levels, and the combinations of these high and low
levels for all input variables are tested.
In food formulations, mixture designs are often used
because is impossible to vary one ingredient while
holding
it all the others constant; in mixture designs, the sum
of all the ingredients in the formulation must add to 100%.
The product designer must always be aware that when
they change the content of one ingredient, the proportion of
the other ingredients changes.
Both technical testing and consumer testing of
these
product prototypes are carried out.
4)
Here the aim
OPTIMIZATION
is to optimise the overall product quality
by determining the levels of the input variables which
will give the best possible product quality.
The problem is that often when optimising one product
quality, another product quality is less than optimum.
So it is important to studying product qualities for
the formulation and processing variables to find
the optimum.
P R O D U C T TESTING/Q UA L I T Y
E VA L UAT I O N
Product testing is an integral part of the product design
and process development.
To achieve the final product prototype, it is very
important that the product is tested at all stages during
its design.
It include:
1. Technical testing
2. Shelf life testing
3. Sensory evaluation
4. Cost
1. T E C H N I C A L
TESTING
The tests can be chemical, physical
and
microbiological.
In the early stages of product design, technical tests
are correlated to the product qualities with the
consumer product profile.
Technical testing is also required to confirm that any
food regulations are being met.
It also ensures consumer safety and labelling
requirements.
At the later stages, technical testing is developed to
monitor the product specification.
2. S H E L F L I F E
TESTING
Testing shelf life is important in food design.
From previous knowledge, some predictions can be
made early in the design on the possible shelf life.
Foods can be divided into
1) Short-life products (up to 10-14 days),
2) Medium-life products (up to eight weeks)
3) Longer-life products (up to 1-2 years).
The possible deterioration reactions in the food
are
identified.
Shelf life testing needs to be started as soon as possible in
the prototype development, usually at the start of
optimisation experiments.
3. S E N S O RY
EVALUATION
Sensory evaluation can be carried out by expert sensory
panels or by consumers.
Traditionally in product design, the expert panel
determined the differences between prototypes and,
while consumer panels evaluated the acceptance of
products or preferences between products.
Consumer panels are now used to guide the design.
A trained panel may consist of between 4 to 10 people,
but consumer panels are larger, comprising at least 30
people depending on the type of testing.
In product formulation, it can consist of 15-20
consumers, rising to 50-100 consumers during the
final processing trials and 200-300 for the final
product prototype.
The consumer panel gives opinions on all product
characteristics, not just sensory qualities but others
such as safety, nutrition, size, ease of use, transport,
storing and convenience.
They can also be involved in the design of
the
package.
4. CO STS
Costs provide a basic criterion for controlling
the design.
They need to be monitored throughout
development
to ensure they are within the target range.
The basic costs for producing and distributing
the product can be subdivided into
1. Manufacturing costs
2. Distribution and marketing costs
3. General company cost.
BAS I C CO STS FO R
P RO D U C I N G AND
DISTRIBUTING A PRODUCT
Manufacturing costs Raw materials cost
Direct processing costs
Fixed costs
Plant overhead costs
Distribution and marketing Physical distribution costs
costs Market channel costs
Promotion costs
Sales and selling costs
General company costs
Administration costs
Development cost
