Managing Time, Money and Resources During the Design Process

By Tom Weltner

Every great product begins with a great idea.  Great ideas, however, are rarely in short supply.  Every competent design engineer generates numerous great product ideas over the course of his or her career.  In my experience, the list of cool product ideas is quite lengthy.  The list of ideas turned into profitable products, however, is a good deal shorter.  From this perspective, the law of supply and demand would lead me to believe that my “great ideas” are so abundant as to be barely worth the graph paper they’re sketched on. 

Nurturing an idea into a profitable product involves risk: risk of time, money, resources and reputation.  The ability to successfully manage these risks is a hallmark of all successful design teams.  Successful product development teams realize that the number of great ideas that actually survive to become profitable products is small. Therefore, such teams seek to make as many key technical, business and management decisions as early in the development cycle as possible, after a minimum outlay of precious resources.

The product designer plays a key role in the risk management process.  When evaluating a potential product, it is important for the designer to determine the most critical aspects of the project.  As an example, let’s say that the designer is working on a concept for a highly improved bone screw.  Further, the designer would like to take advantage of a recent development in material science that would make the screw stronger and lighter than any competing product.  Before going too deep into the design of the screw, however, it would be prudent for the designer to understand the manufacturing processes dictated by the new material.  Each manufacturing process has its own strengths and limitations, and it is these processes that frequently determine the economics of a design.  It may also be worthwhile to perform a series of inexpensive, low tech experiments to determine the suitability of the new material to the new design.  Such simple experiments may indicate that the new material shows promise.  Conversely, it may be determined that the new material degrades when exposed to conventional sterilization techniques.  Either way, identifying this critical decision point as early as possible lowers the project risk.  If the material appears to be suitable, further design expense is justified.  If the material is not suitable, such advanced design would be a waste of valuable resources.

Clinicians and practitioners are typically highly motivated to improve the quality of patient care.  Many have fertile minds and a spark of creativity.  By applying prudent risk management techniques to this caring creativity, innovative products can be brought to the marketplace in the most efficient manner possible.