Lecture 7 Concept Selection

Decision Making 101

Winter 2011 ECEn 490 1
 Concept Development Phase

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5

Concept System-Level Detail Testing and Production
Development Design Design Refinement Ramp-up

Mission Development
Statement Plan

Identify Establish Generate Select a

Target Product Test Set Plan
Customer Product
Specs Concepts Product Final Downstream
Needs Concept
Concept Specs Development

Perform Economic Analysis

Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes

Concept Development
Exhibit 2 Chapter 3 Ulrich & Eppinger

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 Iterative Process of Screening and
Scoring

Filter and decide

Concept generation
Concept screening
Concept scoring
Concept testing
Expand our thinking

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• Every team uses some method of decision making.
Common methods include:
− External decision; let someone else decide, customer, client,
etc.
− Product Champion; an influential team member chooses the
concept.
− Intuition; subjective criteria are used to decide. It just feels
better.
− Multi-voting; team members vote for their favorite.
− Pros and Cons; team list strengths and weaknesses and choose
based on opinions.
− Prototype and test; team builds several units and decision is
based on results.
− Decision matrices; team rates each concept against defined
selection criteria.

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• Benefits of using decision matrices
− A customer focused approach; concepts are
evaluated against customer-oriented criteria.
− More competitive designs; concepts are
benchmarked against best-in-class designs.
− Reduced development time; using a structured
approach develops a common vision and language
for the design team.
− Better group decision making; the decision is
more likely to be based on objective criteria.
− Documentation of the decision process; the
method provides its own documentation.

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 Caution
• Concept Scoring and Screening matrices are
only used on those few (less than 5) design
problems that will make a significant
difference in the outcome of your project.

• You don’t need the formality of concept

scoring and screening for obvious design
choices or those that are dictated by the
preferred solution.

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 • The Two Stages of Concept Selection
− Concept Screening: give relative score against a
known benchmark design.
− fast, approximate evaluation that produces several viable
concepts.
− Best used when quantitative comparisons are difficult.
− Usually requires some sort of reference concept for relative
evaluation.
− Concept Scoring: weighted ranking of
measurement criteria.
− Used when only a few alternatives are being considered.
− Required quantitative comparisons of concepts.
− Can still be quite subjective due to choices of weights and
ranks.

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 • In both cases we use the Six Steps of
Concept Selection
− 1. Prepare the selection matrix—choose the
selection criteria.
− 2. Rate the concepts. Evaluate against a reference
− 3. Rank the concepts. Give the concept a # score
− 4. Combine and improve concepts.
− 5. Select one or more concepts.
− 6. Reflect on the results and the process.

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 Method 1--Concept Screening

Product Concepts
A B C E F
Selection Criteria
Criteria 1

Criteria 2

Criteria 3

Sum/Rank

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 Concept Screening
Concept Ratings
Concepts
Criteria A B C E F

Criteria 1
0 - 0 + --

Criteria 2 0 - + ++ 0

Criteria 3 0 0 - 0 -

Sum/Rank 0 -2 0 +3 -3

A= reference

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 • Step 1--Preparing the Selection Matrix.
− The choice of the selection matrix is key to
the success of both Screening and Scoring.
− Selection criteria should be independent.
− Selection criteria should be chosen to
differentiate among the concepts.
− The criteria should be of the same relative
worth.
− Don’t get too many criteria.
− Use industry comparisons if available.

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 • Concept Screening matrix
− Start with the selection criteria.
− Where are you going to get the selection
criteria?

− These are the key attributes or features of

the product as determined in the FSD.

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 • Next develop the list of concepts that you
are considering for the solution
− This list is the output of the concept generation
exercise.
− Prune the list using intuitive methods to a
manageable number of concepts to consider.
− Each concept should be a solution to the same
problem.

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 • Concept Screening
− Step 2--Rating Concepts
• Use a relative score, +, 0, - or colored dots
• rate against a reference
− Step 3--Rank the Concepts
• sum up the scores
• rank the concepts by scores, highest to lowest.
− Step 4--Combine and Improve the Concepts
• Look at the results and see if there are ways to combine
concepts
• is there one bad feature that is degrading a good concept?

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 In-Class Exercise
• Your team is working for “Innovative Directions”
• You have been given the assignment to work with BYU on
a special project.
• Your team has been assigned this task:

• “Design and build an economical solution which will

make it easy for those unfamiliar with the BYU campus
to find their way around.”

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 Innovative Directions Concept Generation
What would be some of the possible solutions for
providing campus directions?

•Physical map

•Downloadable map

•New signs on campus

•New building signs

•Color coded strips on the sidewalks

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 Innovative Directions Concept Screening example
What would some good screening criteria for
choosing the best alternative for the Innovative
Directions example?
Criteria
• Cost of the solution
• Ease of use
• Portability
• Accuracy of data
• Cost of development
• Availability of solution

What would be a good benchmark concept?

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Concept Screening

New signs on campus

Color coded stripes

New building signs
Downloadable Map
Concepts

Physical Map

on walks
Criteria

Ease of 0
Use
Availability of
0
information
0
Cost
0
Sum/Rank

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 • Concept Screening continued
− Step 5--Select One or More Concepts
• Look for patterns and groupings of concepts.
• Look for natural breakpoints among concepts.

− Step 6--Reflect on the Results

• try to get consensus among the team on the results.
• Ask if the criteria reflects the critical customer
needs.

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 • Method 2--Concept Scoring
− Step 1--Preparing the selection matrix.
− In addition to the requirements for screening:
• each criteria must be assigned a weight in
relationship to its importance.
• A good way of assigning weights is to allocate 100
percentage points across all criteria.
• Or, importance values can be assigned, 1-9.
• There are empirical methods of assigning weights, but
more often they are determined by team consent.

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 • Concept Scoring Matrix

Concepts
Concept A Concept B Concept C Concept D

Criteria Weight Rating Weighted

Score Rating Weighted
Score
Rating Weighted
Score
Rating Weighted
Score

Criteria 1 X% 1 1X
Criteria 2 Y% 3 3Y
Criteria 3 Z% 9 9Z

Totals 100% Sum

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 • Concept scoring, continued
− Step 2--Rate the Concepts
• assign a numerical value to each concept with respect to the
criteria.
• Use a wide scale to help differentiate among concepts. I.e.
1,3,9

− Step 3--Rank the Concepts

• ranking is done by multiplying the concept scores by the
criteria weights.
• Add up all the scores for each concept.
• List the concepts by descending order.

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 Methods of PDA<->Computer Communication (Hardware)

Cost (Weighted x 3)

Communication Distance (Weighted x 2)

Reliability (Weighted x 1)

Ease of communication programming (Weighted x 1)

Customization of PDA necessary? (Weighted x 1)

Power consumption (Weighted x 1)

TOTALS
0 = Terrible
2 = Decent

4 = Good
6=
Awesome

4x3= 6x2= 4x1= 4x1= 2x1= 4x1=

Serial Radio Link (One on each side) 12 12 4 4 2 4 38
0x3= 4x2= 6x1= 6x1= 6x1= 4x1=
Wireless LAN (802.11) 0 8 6 6 6 4 30
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 • Concept Scoring continued
− Step 4--Combining and improving is similar to
concept screening.
− Step 5--Select one or more concepts
• choose the highest ranking concepts
• look for individuals scores where one criteria was
significant to the total.
• Decide whether the scoring was quantitative enough
to make a decision.
− Step 6--Reflect on the Results
• this is again similar to screening, does the answer
make sense.

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 • In class exercise
− Develop a scoring matrix for the criteria
that you developed in Exercise #1.
− Give relative weights to the criteria and
design a scoring definition for the ranking.
− How does this help with the evaluation of
the criteria?

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 In class exercise

Color coded stripes on

New signs on campus

New building signs

Downloadable Map
Concept Scoring

Physical Map
Weight

walks
Ease of use 0
Availability of information 0
Cost 0
Sum/Rank 0 0 0 0 0 0

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 • Potential problems
− Concept criteria are not independent
• a set of criteria reflects a common need, resulting in
too heavy a weighting.
• For example, if you had three criteria relating to
quality, and only one relating to cost, the sum of the
quality scores would be spread over three criteria,
while cost is concentrated in one criteria.
− Criteria are too subjective. How do you deal
with subjective criteria?
− Cost must always be included in some form,
because of the importance to the customer.

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 • Summary
• All teams use some form of selection, often it is
implicit and unstructured.
• Structured concept selection provides a level of
objective measurement that can help differentiate
between competing solutions.
• Concept screening is useful for eliminating alternatives
when you have a large number to consider.
• Concept scoring is used to refine the selection when
you have only a few choices.
• Screening and scoring are not exact sciences.

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 • Homework

− Complete the Concept Generation and

Scoring Document. Due Tues Feb 1st
− Be sure to cover all 5 of areas of the
decision Matrix to insure that the reader will
understand your thought process, and
especially the assumptions that you are
using. (see the document description on the
ECEn 490 business website.)

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Critical parts of the body of the CG&S document. You need a written section for
each of the following;
1. Description of the alternatives considered
2. Discussion of the decision criteria; why were they chosen? why they are important?
These should come directly from the customer needs/FSD.
3. The thought process that resulted in the weighting factors. This should be heavily
driven by the FSD prioritized needs.
4. An analysis of the process of scoring. Why did you choose the various scores?
5. Review your results.

Color coded stripes on

New signs on campus

New building signs

Downloadable Map
Physical Map
Weight

walks
Ease of use 40 5 5 6 4 6

Availability of information 40 5 7 4 4 5
Cost 20 5 7 3 2 3
Sum/Rank 100 500 620 460 360 500

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