New insight into product development

Knowledge / Product design

A product generally goes through six life phases, during which it becomes steadily more adult, says Arthur Eger. His analysis is a useful tool for the industrial designer, and can help him or her develop products further, he argues.

By Editor Design.nl / 24-05-2007

These ideas are contained in the thesis that he will be presenting on his graduation at the Technical University of Delft.
There is still very little theory about the relationship between technical functionality, ergonomics, production and marketing on the one hand, and design on the other hand, says Eger, professor of production design at the University of Twente.

Part of his thesis consists of an inventory of various aspects of the phases that a product goes through during its life cycle. For example, is the product new to the market or is there a lot of competition? Can improvements be made to the product’s functionality, or is it fully developed? Have the product’s ergonomics received due attention, or are there improvements to be made?

In his thesis, Eger analyses the regularities that emerge and describes the six life phases of a product: functionality, optimalisation, detail, segmentation, individualisation and awareness. This leads to a model in which a product’s characteristics can be predicted throughout its life cycle. The model can be applied to an existing product by positioning its present characteristics in the relevant life cycle phase. Future variants of a product ca be developed, and added value generated for the consumer, by adding the characteristics that will ensure that a product reaches the next phase, says Eger.

"My students and I have applied the model to more than fifty products," Eger says. "The model proved to be highly accurate in all the cases we looked at. We did find, however, that it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between the different life cycle phases. My model is therefore not a magic formula, but rather a useful tool for designers, which will help them to think about the steps they need to take to develop a project further."

Anyone interested in the subject can add information to the project, or offer critical comments, corrections and/or relevant links to the Wikipedia article on Evolutionary Product Development.