Designing for profit

For any company, the management of the new product development process is critical to maintaining its market share and competitive advantage. The consequences of designs which are incompatible with key business processes of a company are more severe now than ever before. Focuses on the importance of recognizing that the design process has more to contribute to a manufacturing business than the technological progress it helps to bring about. To this end, for some years now, the principles of design for manufacture have been applied right across the industry, but these have invariably concentrated on making the manufacturing processes simpler, more consistent, user‐friendly and cheaper to operate. This philosophy needs to be extended much further so that the design process takes full account of the requirements of the total supply chain to ensure maximum flexibility and responsiveness to customer demands at a minimum total cost to the business.