Maximize the fit with customer needs
Frog's actions affect its ability to maximize the fit with customer needs by involving their clients and potential customers before the development of the product. In the discover phase, frog design team members do significant research to understand the client's business, market availability, brand, users, and the technology to be used. The findings are then synthesized to identify goals, opportunities, and critical success factors following the design of the identified product. The company uses several activities to help them generate novel design solutions, which usually include facilitated brainstorming sessions.
The sessions comprise of frog's designers, members from the client's project team, and several potential consumers. The group is broken into smaller groups that are led through a variety of activities designed to help them connect the aspects of their technology, brand, and consumer experience in new ways. The ideas are then harvested and analyzed in a process that relies heavily on intuition, subjectivity, and consumer emotions rather than just empirical analysis.
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Also, during the design phase, there are multiple iterations with potential consumers, which include incorporating consumer design suggestions. Frog makes models and presents them to the customers to test. They talk about how they would use it or how it could be modified to be more useful or appealing (Chang & Taylor, 2016). It always resulted in the design of a product that best suits customer needs. It also leads to the production of better product designs.
Maximize development cycle time
Frog’s activities affect its ability to maximize development cycle time by using rudimental prototypes, sketches, and digital renderings. Sometimes the design team uses design charrettes, an intense rapid design in which multiple designers participate to create a design solution by drawing sketches or crafting prototypes with primary material such as foam, core, tape, and glue. The various iterations with potential consumers provide helpful suggestions on how the product will be used and how it can be modified to be more useful and appealing (Khalid & Helander, 2006). The consumers feel freer to suggest significant changes when models are not yet well developed or refined. It saves a lot of time in the development process because they allow for early identification of design priorities and avoid costly rework.
Control development costs
Frog’s activities affect its ability to control development costs by making use of the computer-aided designs and computer-aided manufacturing instead of functional models. Frog designs emphasize rudimental prototypes, sketches, and digital renderings rather than functional prototypes since they are more malleable. They are also far much cheaper to produce than making an appearance product, which looks like it is functioning, yet it is not. The computer-aided designs or the foam mock-ups can provide much of the same benefit at a small fraction of the cost (Petanakul et al., 2013).
Also, the design process relies heavily on multiple iterations with potential consumers, where design suggestions are incorporated. It reduces the possibility of material wastage and makes it easy and cheap to develop the product by minimizing rework.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of involving customers reasonably early in the design process?
Advantages
Involving customers early in the design process enhances product development since the designed product can be able to suit customers’ demands (Terniko, 2018). It has proved to be useful mainly for incremental innovations such as those products designed by the frog. It can also minimize the development cycle time and the cost of developing the actual product. (Hovinga, 2012)
Disadvantages
For radical innovations, well-developed product design may constrain a customer’s ability and willingness to articulate a significantly different perspective on the design of the product.
What are the pros and cons of using computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and photorealistic renderings instead of functional prototypes in the development process?
Pros
Computer-aided designs/ manufacturing and photorealistic renderings can be more accurate than functional prototypes or handwritten models.
It helps to reduce errors as well as easy removal of errors in case it occurs.
The computer-aided designs provide the ability to save and edit ideas, which makes it easier and cheaper to make modifications of the design as the designer goes along.
The photorealistic renderings allow one to modify the existing design in case more ideas and suggestions are harnessed from the potential consumers of the product.
Computer-aided design software allows the designer to tinker with designs and make changes on the fly and can also be used to simulate the behavior of the model in software.
Cons
The computer-aided/manufacturing involves the use of outsourced software. The software itself can be expensive; therefore, the initial costs of product design are high.
Although there could be a free software package in the market, the staff need to be trained on how to use the software. The cost of providing training surpasses that of making a functional prototype. The production of a rudimental prototype involves the use of a computer, therefore, increasing the initial value of the development. There is also time and expense incurred in the process of migrating legacy drawings into computer-aided design formats (Payne et al., 2009).
Would the frog's approach be more suitable for some kinds of development projects than others? If so, which type would it be appropriate or inappropriate for?
Yes, the frog's drawing table to store shelves approach emphasizes redefining a product both functionally and aesthetically. The process heavily depends on creativity and emotion. It might be appropriate for projects such as mobile products, electronic products, software computer and media retail, healthcare, and internet services. From the frog's process, it is clear that the main task of the frog is about the stretch from initial conception to the completion of a product. The three phases of frog, which include discovering, design, and deliver, often focus on customer's suggestions about the product. Throughout the three steps, there is a probability that the central aspect of frog in design is focused on the basic prototypes, which means the popular customer will be treated as the best choice in the survey. Therefore, the company is known for creating products with an aesthetic appeal that evokes an emotion respons4e in the consumer (Melissa, 2010).
However, it might be more appropriate for major new product categories for a firm, or a complete refurbishment of a firm's image in a particular category.
The approach may not be appropriate for incremental improvements to an existing product line. It might also be less suitable for products for which aesthetic play a limited role, such as industrial machinery and chemical industries.
Would frog's approach to product development be useful in a firm that primarily manufactured, marketed, and distributed its products?
Frog's approach to product development would be reasonably effective in a firm that primarily manufactured, marketed, and distributed its products, although readjustments would be required. Frog's specialty is coming up with novel solutions such as significant product innovations that may require combining materials in previously unconsidered ways. This, however, may not be as well suited for demands that a firm would typically have for incremental improvements to existing products. (Bobbe et al., 2016)
While the frog process would likely be useful in a manufacturing firm, it might not be sufficient. It can also be costly to encourage many experiments and to encourage unfettered creativity if it is not needed for some relatively straightforward improvements to an existing product.
References
Bobbe, T., Krzywinski, J., & Woelfel, C. (2016). A comparison of design process models from academic theory and professional practice. In DS 84: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2016 14th International Design Conference (pp. 1205-1214).
Chang, W., & Taylor, S. A. (2016). The effectiveness of customer participation in new product development: A meta-analysis . Journal of Marketing, 80(1), 47-64.
Goyal, A., & Yadav, A. K. (2019). 14 Use of CAD and . Fibers to Smart Textiles: Advances in Manufacturing, Technologies, and Applications, 269.
Hovinga, T. R. (2012). frogConnect: A strategic approach to engaging frog's clients in the design process and educating them about design.
Khalid, H. M., & Helander, M. G. (2006). Customer emotional needs in product design. Concurrent Engineering, 14 (3), 197-206.
Patanakul, P., Chen, J., & Lynn, G. S. (2012). Autonomous teams and new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(5), 734-750.
Payne, A., Storbacka, K., Frow, P., & Knox, S. (2009). Co-creating brands: Diagnosing and designing the relationship experience . Journal of Business Research, 62(3), 379-389 .
Terninko, J. (2018 ). Step-by-step QFD: customer-driven product design . Routledge.
Weber, M. E., Weggeman, M. C., & Van Aken, J. E. (2012). Developing what customers need: involving customers in innovations. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 9(03), 1250018.
