Design Management Group

Further Reading

Many books have been written on Product Design and Development and NPD / NPI.

Four of the favourites are:

• Cooper, R.G. (2001) Winning at New Products : accelerating the process from idea to launch, 3rd edition, Reading, MA.: Perseus books

• McGrath, Michael E. (ed) (1996) Setting the PACE in Product Development : a guide to product and cycle-time excellence. Butterworth-Heinemann

• Baxter, M. (1995) Product Design: Practical methods for the systematic development of new products. Chapman and Hall, London

• Ulrich, Karl T. and Eppinger, Steven D. (2003) Product design and development, 3rd edition, London: McGraw-Hill

The first two focus on the process while the others concentrate more on the design and NPD activities themselves. Cooper is the father of the 'Stage-Gate' process for managing NPI. I like the McGrath book because it is short(!), and covers a range of NPI process issues.

Baxter's book covers many design-related tools and techniques. Ulrich & Eppinger's book takes more of an engineering perspective. Amazon UK links are provided for convenience.

Others worth a look include:

• Ashby, M. and Johnson, K. (2002) Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design, Butterworth-Heinemann

• Bralla, J.G. (1998) Design for Manufacturability Handbook, McGraw-Hill Education

• Cagan, J. and Vogel, C. (2002) Creating Breakthrough Products: Innovation from Product Planning to Program Approval, Financial Times Prentice Hall

• Coates, D. (2002) Watches Tell More Than Time: Product design, information, and the quest for elegance, McGraw-Hill

• Dreyfuss, H. (2003) Designing for People, New York : Allworth Press (reprint of classic work on industrial design)

• Kelley T. and Littman, J. (2001), The Art of Innovation, Harper Collins Business, London

• Lorenz, Christopher (1990) The Design Dimension: the new competitive weapon for product strategy and global marketing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell - may now be out of print

• Meyer, M.H and Lehnerd, A.P. (1997) The Power of Product Platforms: building value and cost leadership. New York:The Free Press

• Moore, G. A. (1991) Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and selling high-tech goods to mainstream customers (New York: HarperBusiness).

• Norman, D. (1988) The Psychology of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York

• Reinertsen, D. (1997) Managing the Design Factory : A Product Developer's Toolkit : Free Press

• Smith, P.G. and Reinertson, D.G. (1997) Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools, Second Edition. John Wiley and Sons

• Tidd, J., Bessant, J. and Pavitt, K (2005) Managing Innovation: Integrating technological, market and organisational change, 3rd Ed. Chichester:Wiley

• Walsh, V., Roy, R., Bruce, M. and Potter, S. (1992) Winning by Design : Technology, product design and international competitiveness, Blackwell, Oxford.

• Wheelwright, S. C. and Clark, K.B. (1992) Revolutionising Product Development : Quantum leaps in speed, efficiency and quality, Free Press, New York

These books chronicle the development of two iconic products along with the associated business issues:

• Butter, A. and Pogue, D. (2002) Piloting Palm: The inside story of Palm, Handspring, and the birth of the billion dollar handheld industry, Wiley, New York

• Takahashi, D. (2002) Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's plan to unleash an entertainment revolution, Prima Publishing, Roseville - A fascinating insight into product definition process for the Xbox

Many more books and articles can be found here: Additional reading

A booklet titled A Guide to Effective Product Design is available.

Academic papers produced in relation to the Good Design Practice program are listed here: Academic papers