Ch. 5

Question 1

How does product strategy guide product decisions?

Answer 1

An effective product strategy meets the demands of the marketplace with a competitive advantage.

Question 2

A structured approach to defining customer needs or requirements and translating them into specific plans to produce products to meet those needs.

Answer 2

Quality Function Deployment

Question 3

What are the three major elements of product design?

Answer 3

Product definition, design, and selection

Question 4

What is the objective of product decision?

Answer 4

Develop and implement a product strategy that meet the demands of the marketplace with a competitive advantage.

Question 5

At what stage in the product life cycle should product strategy focus on forecasting capacity requirements?

Answer 5

Growth Phase

Question 6

In which stage of the product life cycle should product strategy focus on process modification and being “fine-tuned” for the market?

Answer 6

Introductory phase

Question 7

What analysis tool lists products in descending order of their individual dollar contribution to the firm?

Answer 7

Product-by-value analysis

Question 8

It is a rule of thumb in business known as the 80-20 rule or law of the vital few. Identify the most important customers or products.

Answer 8

Pareto Prinicple

Question 9

At what stage is the product life cycle is product strategy likely to focus on improved cost control?

Answer 9

Maturity –during the maturity stage, the primary focus for most companies will be maintaining their market share.

Question 10

How can companies generate new ideas?

Answer 10

Understanding customer needs, product development culture, R&D leadership, formal incentives to develop new products, monitoring and anticipating changes in the environment and in products, brainstorming.

Question 11

Process of creating new product to be sold by a business to its customers.

Answer 11

Product Design

Question 12

How does the design of services differ from the design of goods?

Answer 12

Service design involves the specific service and entire service concept(physical elements, aesthetic & psychological benefits).

Question 13

What are common categories of “new products”?

Answer 13

Each new product category has a different impact on operations. Product changes involve marketing, operations, and finance.

Question 14

What are the product development stages?

Answer 14

Concept, feasibility, customer requirements, functional specifications, product specifications, design review, test market, introduction, evaluation.

Question 15

Process for determining customer wants and translating them into the attributes that each functional area can understand and act on.

Answer 15

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Question 16

What are the major steps associated with quality function deployment?

Answer 16

Identify the wants, identify how the good/service will satisfy the customer wants, relate customer wants to product hows, identify the relationships between the firm’s hows, develop importance ratings, evalueate competing products, determine the desirable technical attributes, your performance , and the competitor’s performance against these attributes

Question 17

A process to achieve equal or better performance of a product at a lower cost while maintaining all functional requirements defined by the customer.

Answer 17

value engineering

Question 18

What tool emphasizes reducing the complexity of a product and improving a product’s maintainability?

Answer 18

Design for manufacture and assembly

Question 19

What is a graphic or visual technique for defining the relationship between customer desires and a product (or service)?

Answer 19

Process-chain network

Question 20

What are the benefits of using the House of Quality template?

Answer 20

Requirement planning capabilities, tool for visual and integrated thinking, capture and preserve engineering thought process.

Question 21

How should managers organize for product development?

Answer 21

Traditionally, A champion, team approach, Japanese approach.

Question 22

What is a major feature of the Japanese method of organizing for product design?

Answer 22

Cut across organizational divisions to deliver capabilities housed across the organization

Question 23

What is the process called for determining customer requirements and translating them into attributes that each functional area can understand and act upon?

Answer 23

Quality functional deployment

Question 24

Achieve equal or better performance at a lower cost while maintaining all functional requirements defined by the customer

Answer 24

value engineering

Question 25

Developing new products faster can result in a competitive advantage. Product life cycles are becoming shorter and the rate of technological change is increasing

Answer 25

product development continuum

Question 26

How can managers improve DFMA and value?

Answer 26

Create cross functional teams, consider ease of production and delivery, simplify and reduce complexity, create modularity in good or service.

Question 27

Small variations in production or assembly do not adversely affect the product

Answer 27

robust design

Question 28

A design in which parts or components of a product are subdivided into modules that are easily interchanged or replaced

Answer 28

modular design

Question 29

What are the benefits of improving “manufacturability” with value engineering?

Answer 29

Reduce complexity of product, reduction of environmental impact, additional standardization of components, improvement of functional aspects of the product, improved job design and safety.

Question 30

What is the term for software that is used to interactively design products and prepare engineering documentation?

Answer 30

Computer-aided design

Question 31

What technology “builds” products by laying down successive thin layers of plastic, metal, glass, or ceramics?

Answer 31

Design for manufacture and assembly

Question 32

If a design can be produced to requirements even when the production process has unfavorable conditions, what is the design called?

Answer 32

Robust design

Question 33

How is a tangible product defined?

Answer 33

A physical product/good that you can touch.

Question 34

What tool reviews successful products for improvement during the production process?

Answer 34

Computer-aided design