Validation-Driven Design in the Early Phase of Product Development

Abstract

Given its leverage effect on downstream processes, the early phase of product development has special significance for the success of an innovation project. The scope for decision-making in the early phase is high and the time and effort required for changes relatively low. The late correction of wrong decisions made in early phases, on the other hand, is often associated with a disproportionately high effort. Validation activities in the early phase of product development are thus key to development success. At the same time, however, early validation activities come with special challenges, partly resulting from the high degree of uncertainty and a lack of resources in this phase.Early validation starts from product models. The product profile is a product model established for the use in the early development phase and beyond. It contains both solution-open and solution-specific elements. A particular challenge that developers face in practice when preparing early validation activities is the specification of solution-open elements of the product profile. Contributing to a targeted validation in early development phases, this paper presents a method that supports the developer in prioritizing, selecting and concretizing solution-open product attributes for early creation-validation cycles starting from the initial system of objectives. The method enables product developers to reduce uncertainties systematically regarding relevant customer and user requirements by means of targeted validation already in early development phases. We will explain the findings of this paper by using an example from the automotive industry. We will also discuss results from the evaluation of the method which we generated in a development project for mining equipment.