Focus on Function During Product Development. 

BEST PRACTICE KEY CONCEPTS

• The design process not only gives birth to a product but is responsible for its life and death.
• Decisions made by designers affect virtually all the stages in a product’s life cycle.
• There are four stages in a product’s life cycle: Design, Production and Delivery, Use, and End of Life.
• The designer must address all four.
• The Design stage is further broken into phases: Product Definition, Project Planning, Conceptual Design, and Product Development.
• The Production and Delivery stage consists of Manufacture, Assemble, Distribute, and Install.
• A product is often designed for many different uses.
• The end of life is usually a combination of the product being retired (taken out of use), then some combination of disassembly, disposal, recycling, or reuse.
• Modern products are designed cradle-to-cradle.