A rapid design process for Total Care Product creation

Abstract

Total Care Products are innovative packages consisting of hardware and services integrated to provide a complete functional provision. These types of products are becoming increasingly popular as companies strive to find new ways to ensure their business remains profitable and their products are attractive to customers. The Total Care Product creation process requires close collaboration between the customer and supplier as the two parties engage in an iterative, often time-consuming procedure involving needs, expectations and solutions exploration that ultimately leads to the creation of the functional product. This paper describes a novel design process for Total Care Product creation that seamlessly integrates hardware and service support by providing a robust design methodology and process support tool that firstly breaks down Total Care Product creation into distinct stages, and then the support structure is provided to facilitate the design and decision-making process at each stage in a rapid and simplified way. In order to be able to integrate hardware and service support design in such a manner, it is first necessary to assess how the hardware and service design processes are currently performed in their own right. The hardware design process is well documented and understood, in contrast to service design. This paper describes the service design process in detail, highlighting the similarities with hardware design and detailing how services are designed. Having described the service design process, and using knowledge of hardware design, the paper then proceeds to describe the development of a fast design process for the Total Care Product creation process that integrates both hardware and services. The numerous potential benefits of employing the fast design process are highlighted.