Creating New Foods. The Product Developer's Guide - The organisation of the Product Development project

CREATING NEW FOODS
THE PRODUCT DEVELOPER'S GUIDE

CHAPTER 2
The organisation of the Product Development project

2.4 SELECTING THE ACTIVITIES AND TECHNIQUES

The objectives have been defined, and now the activities to produce the outcomes implicit in these objectives need to be identified.

For example, the objective was to have a comparison of dried fish products on the Nigerian market; this needs some market research, but what type of market research? The choice of activities is not only determined by the results needed and the accuracy of the results, but also by how much resources and how much time is available. The description of the activity defines the outcome expected, the timeframe to be met and the resources that can be used.

In market and consumer research, it is customary to have a research brief and then a research proposal; the brief sets out what the outcome is to be, and then the proposal details the type of research, its accuracy, the time and the costs. In the product design process, product design specifications are provided, the times and resources available determined and then the design proposal developed which outlines the design procedure and its time and cost frame. This combination of brief and proposal could be used for other activities in order to set appropriate targets, to communicate these clearly to the persons responsible and to get commitments from these persons to achieve the outcomes.

Many activities were identified in Chapter 1 in the various stages; they can be broadly divided into product, consumer, production (processing) and distribution, marketing and finance. They are often interconnected and it is often more useful to group the various activities into strands according to the outcome that has to be reached.

For example, the initial technical and market studies are connected with the product idea generation and screening which is connected with the development of the product concept. It is often useful to look at the outcome from the black box, and then decide what activities are needed for this outcome and the techniques to be used.

But the question is - what activities?

This is directed by the knowledge, resources and time available, and also by the techniques which can be used.

For example, there may be many product ideas already in the company, so the product idea generation will not involve many people in brainstorming groups, but one or two people categorising the ideas already available; or a gap in the market may have been identified and the product ideas have to be specific to the gap and idea generation is done by a small group of consumers. In other projects, the consumer needs are studied with consumers in focus groups and ideas developed in the groups. Other times, it is a technological development that is pushing the product development, and the ideas for using the technology come from a brainstorming group of technologists and marketers.

Figure 2.2 lists some of the activities, outcomes, techniques in product concept development.

Figure 2.2 Relating outcomes, activities and techniques in product concept development

In some companies, the same activities are used for every project but they may not be suitable. For example, the activities can be different for consumer, industrial and food service products because of the different relationships between product, supplier and buyer; there is usually minimal interaction between the consumer and the company in consumer product development but in food service the product is developed by the buyer (the chef) and the supplier together. The interactions are:

Food service product

The activity and the techniques are related to type of product, buyer/product/supplier relationship, level of innovation and technology available, as well as the knowledge and skills of the individual and the team. For example, if the team is not mathematical, they will use neither linear programming in product formulation nor multi-dimensional scaling in consumer research. The activity delivers the outcome and is efficient and reliable within the knowledge base and the resources.