Concept Screening in Product Development

5 Key excerpts on "Concept Screening in Product Development"

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  eBook - PDF

  The Development of new food products

  • Reema(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Delve Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Thorough product concept testing may help a company decide whether to spend money and time in a business or to abandon it entirely. Project ideas should be in line with the organization’s objectives. Throughout the development process, project managers should test concepts to see if the market feasibility of the idea, ingredient accessibility, and regulatory issues have changed. Smaller businesses may use the help of outside firms to do market research. Figure 3.5: Idea screening is the next phase in NPD. Idea screening, on the other hand, entails sorting through the ideas to find the best one. We locate several ideas during Idea creation, and we screen them during this step to select the best one. The reason behind this is because product development costs a lot of money in the end, therefore the corporation would rather move through with the ideas that will turn into successful items rather than the ones that will fail. Source: https://thefoodtechnologist.com/technology/food-product-develop- ment/ Key Steps in New Food Product Development 69 The goal of concept screening is to keep the innovative techniques and discard the ones that could fail - much simpler to say than to do in practice! If you’re unsure, hold the concept until you get additional information. Idea screening can be focused on the individual’s and firm’s tacit knowledge, with minimal additional explicit information sought from within or outside the company. However, the goal of subsequent examinations is to gather the information needed to make quantifiable, objective conclusions (PF Guiné et al., 2016). Product idea summaries or ideas, screening parameters, and screening methodologies are all included in idea screening. Product concept descriptions must be written in a way that everyone participating in the screening process understands and evaluates in the same way. The selection of screening parameters is, of course, critical; the criteria clearly impact the direction of choosing.

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  The Marketing Research Guide

  • Robert E Stevens, David L Loudon, Morris E Ruddick, Bruce Wrenn, Philip K Sherwood(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 14 Concept/Product Testing

  When all is said and done, a product must be accepted by the consumer in order to be successful. Technology is a wonderful thing, but regardless of how technically advanced or well designed a product is, it must pass the test of consumer trial and repeat purchase. The successful product, then, is the one that has created enough interest for trial and has met needs sufficiently well to become a satisfactory alternative in the marketplace. In order to improve the chances of a product achieving acceptance in the marketplace, a systematic approach to product testing is prudent.

  Product testing has several stages. In this chapter we will discuss the following: • Concept testing • Developmental testing • Fit of product/concept • Testing Techniques We will then address the testing procedures (i.e., location and methods) that can be used to perform these product tests.

  CONCEPT TESTING

  Concept testing begins with the generation and screening of ideas. Ideas are generated that will mesh with the existing product lines and will compliment the overall goals of the organization. Once the ideas are developed, screening provides a preliminary evaluation of new products with the objective to identify the most promising ones and eliminate the poorer ideas as quickly and inexpensively as possible. The basic methods of idea generation are:

  • Brainstorming • Focus groups • Synectics • Problem detection

  Brainstorming dates back to the late 1930s and is popular with many groups for its dynamic, creative atmosphere. Although the format may vary, the groups are normally small working sessions where the objective is to create as many ideas as possible quickly and in a noncritical manner. This approach can produce many ideas in a short period of time, with no guarantee that the ideas will be something that can be commercialized.

  Focus groups are used frequently to refine concepts and are sometimes used for idea generation. These groups are sometimes referred to as “ideation” sessions. See Chapter 5

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  Complex Management Systems and the Shingo Model

  Foundations of Operational Excellence and Supporting Tools

  • Rick Edgeman(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Productivity Press

    (Publisher)

  Criteria should be at similar levels of detail, should enable objective assessment, and should be able to discern differences among concepts relative to a standard concept. The standard concept can be an existing comparable product, process, or service and can be selected—including arbitrarily selected—from among the concepts to be compared. As with criteria, the various concepts should be described at similar levels of detail, though not necessarily in the same manner. Concepts may be detailed in any one or a combination of several forms, including written description, sketches, or physical models. It is usually the case that both concepts and criteria are provided at a relatively crude level of detail at this early stage and all criteria are treated as though they are of equal or similar importance. Screening is then carried out by comparing each concept to the standard concept on each of the identified criteria. Relative to each criterion, the concept being compared will be rated (assessed) as better (+1), similar (0), or worse than (−1) the standard concept. These values are then summed across the various criteria for each concept and the sum is recorded. These sums are then used as directional aids for each concept, after which the organizing committee, team, or individual conducting the screening will assess each concept to determine whether it should be dropped from further consideration, refined, combined with one or more other concepts, or advanced directly for further consideration. The concept screening process is illustrated in Table 16.1 in which it is assumed that eight (8) different pen concepts—A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H—will be screened, using six different criteria—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. For example, Concept B could be that the point of the pen is exposed by clicking and has a triangular grip (shape) that is of rubber composition (material). Similarly, Criteria 3 might be related to the durability of a given concept

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  Engineering Innovation

  From idea to market through concepts and case studies

  • Benjamin M. Legum, Amber R. Stiles, Jennifer L. Vondran(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The removal of one or more functions or subfunctions from the existing process in Functional Decomposition may qualify as “innovation.” In parallel with Concept Generation, teams often need to validate their concepts through Concept Validation. Concept Validation involves conducting market research and customer surveys on the finalized concepts. Concept Generation and Concept Validation often overlap, since it is not uncommon for concepts to need adjustment in response to the market research and customer survey data gathered during Concept Validation.

  The next step is Concept Screening. Concept Screening is when the team assembles and sets to work using decision-making tools to rank and filter the generated concepts. Not unlike the Needs Refinement process, Concept Screening uses High-Level Validation to generate the acceptance criteria, with the goal of filtering out the concepts with the lowest commercialization potential.

  Whittling down the concepts leads to Concept Selection. Concept Selection is the point where the team decides on a single concept, while keeping alternatives in mind. Analogous to Needs Refinement, the Concept Selection process occurs during In-Depth Validation where the team reaches out to stakeholders to validate the concept. Note that Concept Validation continues even after the highest ranking (or scored) concept is selected. Validation should continue even after market entry.

  The Provisional Patent Application is then prepared and submitted, encompassing all ideas and concepts so that any pivot during product development will be accounted for under the provisional patent application. As the proof-of-concept (POC) shifts to a prototype and then to a product, continued collaboration with your company’s IP attorneys will protect your invention/innovation.

  9.1 Needs Finding Process

  An unmet need is the identification of a problem, or “pain point,” of a stakeholder resulting from an observation. Think of the identification of an unmet need as seeing that there is a missing piece to a puzzle. Finding a viable unmet need is not easy, but an unmet need is more likely to come to light with the accumulation of experience and astute stakeholder observations within a specific industry. In most cases, the whole of the puzzle is difficult to see, and due diligence will uncover the upstream–downstream stakeholders (discussed in Chapter 2 ) and their needs and interests, thus helping complete the puzzle. A need is not

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  Product Planning Essentials

  • Kenneth Kahn(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  5 Concept Generation

  Concept generation represents ideation activities that a team or company undertakes to amass a valid set of product concepts. Ideation, by definition, is the conceiving, imagining, and forming of ideas. As a distinct stage in the product development process, concept generation serves to generate as many concepts as possible, screen these concepts, and determine the most valid concepts for further development. Depending on the nature of the product development process and company strategy, concepts may be very broad (and unrelated) in nature or very narrow in scope.

  A variety of concept generation techniques can be employed to spur ideation. The techniques to be discussed in the present chapter are needs assessment, scenario analysis, group creativity, attribute analysis, relationship analysis, and lateral search. Discussion begins with the product concept statement in order to illustrate the importance of understanding what constitutes a good product concept statement when applying each of these techniques. Because creativity plays a key role during concept generation, the topic of creativity is discussed after the presentation of the concept generation techniques.

  The Product Concept Statement

  Like the product innovation charter, a product concept serves as a foundation upon which to further the product development effort. Whereas the product innovation charter presents the overall opportunity and provides the product development team with a mission statement, the product concept statement defines what the product is to be. This purpose mandates that each generated concept should have a corresponding product concept statement. At the end of the concept generation stage, the application of one or more concept generation techniques will result in a set of product concepts and a corresponding set of product concept statements. There is always the possibility of a common thread emerging across these product concept statements, which will afford a general product concept statement.

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