A framework for efficient product design

Modern market trends like shorter product lifetimes coupled with increasing demands for variety and newness are having a profound effect on the process of product design. Added to this the pace of technological change in electronics is now very rapid and showing no signs of slowing. Concepts like value engineering, design for manufacture and design for serviceability are not new but the total breadth of knowledge required to produce successful designs has never been greater. This causes us to examine and rethink the actual process of design creation as never before. There is little doubt that this process holds the key to success in today´s fast moving marketplace. The achievement of market success today depends on having a design process that is market orientated, quick and as low cost as possible. This requires the multi-disciplinary approach of concurrent engineering coupled with good IT systems that allow easy re-use of design features and easy access to data. All of this requires the engineer to operate with a new mindset: design for the whole life cycle; work in multi-disciplinary teams; and motivated by commercial success