5.2 THE DESIGN PROCESS

The design activities are grouped into steps: 'getting the feel', screening, ball-park studies, optimisation and scale-up of production and marketing, leading at the end to product and process specifications, marketing strategy and financial analysis as shown in Figure 5.1. This allows control of the design process as the consumer, product and process activities are coordinated into small mini-projects with specific objectives.

The activities and some of the experimental techniques in the various stages of product design and process development are shown in Figure 5.1. The stages used in this book are ‘getting the feel’, screening, ball-park studies, optimisation, scale-up (production) and scale-up (marketing).

Figure 5.1 Activities and experimental techniques in product design and process development

PRODUCT DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS     'Getting the feel'   Recognising the variables Setting the limits ‘Ad hoc' experiments     PRODUCT 'MOCK-UPS' Screening   Importance of variables Interrelationships of variables Simple experimental designs     ELEMENTARY PRODUCT PROTOTYPES Ball-park studies   Variables limits Variables interactions Basic packaging Linear programming Factorial designs     ACCEPTABLE PRODUCT PROTOTYPES Optimisation Stepwise variable changes in small area Aesthetic product design Complete process design Optimisation designs     OPTIMUM PRODUCT PROTOTYPE Scale-up: production   Process testing in plant Yields study EVOP HACCP Scale-up: marketing Marketing/product definition Market channel selection Pricing analysis Sales prediction Consumer panels, large consumer test Market survey Sales forecasting     FINAL PRODUCT PROTOTYPE PRODUCT AND PROCESS SPECIFICATIONS MARKETING STRATEGY           FINANCIAL ANALYSIS FEASIBILITY REPORT