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| Author: | Ulrich, K. T. Pearson, S. |
| Title: | Assessing the importance of design through product archaeology |
| Journal: | Management Science
1998 : MAR, VOL. 44:3, p. 352-369 |
| Index terms: | PRODUCT DESIGN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANUFACTURING BENCHMARKING STATISTICAL METHODS PRODUCTION COSTS |
| Language: | eng |
| Abstract: | The paper assesses the importance of design in determining costs of products by measuring the variation in design performance among a set of competing design efforts. This assessment is completed for a set of functionally similar products in a single product category: automatic drip coffee makers. The manufacturing content, the attributes of the design that drive cost, is measured through analysis of the physical products themselves, and to estimate how variation in manufacturing content relates to variation in cost in a hypothetical manufacturing setting. This approach is called product archaeology. For the coffee makers, significant variation is found in manufacturing content. The variation in manufacturing content corresponds to a range of estimated manufacturing costs, for a hypothetical manufacturing system, of appr. 50 % of the average manufacturing cost of the products. The differences in capabilities among product development efforts are the most plausible explanation for the differences in manufacturing content. |
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