Full-Integration Product Design

  Communications Management   Innovation   Manufacturing   ProjectsAtWork  

As products become increasingly complex, design teams must integrate a wide range of expertise throughout the development process. This offers new opportunities for innovation while helping to carry the vision all the way through to production and curtailing late compromises.

Nearly every manmade object you come into contact with was likely the result of a team effort. But in the product development world, as products continue to grow more complex and more integral to our lives, so do the required interactions and values amongst the development team involved. Companies today are under ever increasing pressures to differentiate through feature, function, manufacturing or materials.  No longer can products simply be passed down an assembly line of firms, receiving strategic insight, research, industrial, mechanical, electrical and other development work separately. Today, development programs must allow transparency across the team, enabling each member to become highly involved with each step. Only then can you integrate goals, expertise and methodologies successfully.

This hasn’t always been the case. In the past, integration across product development teams was limited at best. The researchers, designers and production team were often all separate entities, taking over the product management only when it was their turn. An electrical engineer, for example,…

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