Product Development in Business Context: Tools, Techniques, and Ethical Considerations

Penalties for Late Submissions:

• For each day (or working day for hard copy submission only) for up to five days after the published deadline, coursework submitted late (including deferred coursework, but with the exception of referred coursework), will have the numeric grade reduced by 10 grade points until or unless the numeric grade reaches or is 40 (UG) or 50 (PG).

• Late submission of referred coursework will automatically be awarded a grade of zero (0).

• Coursework (including deferred coursework) submitted later than five days (five working days in the case of hard copy submission) after the published deadline will be awarded a grade of zero (0).

• Note: The School operates a strict policy on late submission. StudyNet marks all work submitted late, even by one second, as Late, in which case the above late penalties will be applied. Where genuine serious adverse circumstances apply, you may apply for an extension to the hand-in date, provided the extension is requested a reasonable period in advance of the deadline. However, you are warned that lateness due to network congestion (either at the University or on your local network), difficulty with filenames, poor time management and similar issues will not be considered as admissible circumstances. For this reason,

This Assignment assesses the following module Learning Outcomes:

To enable the students to:

1. Explore product development in a business context in terms of the functions of manufacturing industry;

2. Examine the information flows and typical management structures that support product development;

3. Discuss the need for high ethical conduct in the context of product development;

4. Analyse competitive forces influencing product and business decisions;

5. Apply the tools and techniques typically used during product development;

6. Recommend alternative product strategies.

Research and use the six basic steps recommended for building the HoQ to:

(a) identify what customer wants (state up to 10 possible customer needs for the RN-20,

(b) identify how the product will satisfy the customer,

(c) identify relationships between ‘how’s’,

(d) develop importance ratings,

(e) evaluate competing products or services, and

(f) determine the desirable technical attributes.

Limit your work to secondary data obtained from relevant literature which can be supplemented by reasonable synthetic data. Clearly state all your assumptions.

Use references from the literature to reinforce your discussions; your citations and reference list should be based on the Harvard Referencing System.

Submission Requirements:

Submit your technical report in PDF. The assignment will be marked anonymously, therefore do not include any personal identifier please.

Formatting:

Use Font Arial 10, portrait layout, normal margins and 1.5 spacing.

The word count limit for the assignment is 1500 (±10%) words including Tables. The word count does NOT include:

§ Title page

§ Table of contents

§ List of references (in text citations are included)

§ Appendices.

Material in appendices will NOT count for marks and they should not exceed 8 pages in length. Assignments shorter than the word count limit will not lose marks, but may lead to the omission of material which would gain them. Any words over the word count limit will not be marked. You should not use any mechanism, such as embedded jpeg images containing significant text, in an effort to circumvent the word count.

A note to the Students:

1. For undergraduate modules, a score above 40% represent a pass performance at honours level.

2. For postgraduate modules, a score of 50% or above represents a pass mark.

3. Modules may have several components of assessment and may require a pass in all elements. For further details, please consult the relevant Module Guide or ask the Module Leader.