Abstract
M.Phil. (Electrical & Electronic Engineering Science)
The need to industrialise South Africa has been an effort of government to increase manufacturing and Gross Domestic Products (GDP) while also creating decent work. Manufacturing industry has been striking with organisations closing and moving. Organisations have been established and fail to compete in the market due to lack of expertise to produce products that meet the customer`s requirements. Due to the opportunities of industrialisation in Africa the focus to develop equipment for these industries is necessary. This research objective is to develop a Systematic Approach of Product Development for Industrial Processing Equipment manufacturers that supply various organisations. The research will respond to the following question while also defining the development process:-
Will product development be helpful in industrialising South Africa and building sustainable manufacturing businesses?
Define a process feedback diagram of a systematic approach of product development to be used by industrial processing equipment?
The research is done with the use of literature review form published sources which is validated by survey questions that were sent to sustainable successful organizations that supply industrial equipment. The research finding demonstrates the success phases and steps to be followed when developing product. The phases and their steps are;-
1. Marketing phase stages are Identifying Market Opportunities, Evaluating Potential Markets, Identifying Customer`s Needs and Product specification
2. Concept Development phase stages are system engineering for requirements identification & allocations, Internal & external Search of solution, concept selection and concept testing
3. System Level Design phase stages is Product Architecture
4. Detailed Design Phase stages are industrial design and design for manufacturing
5. Refinement and testing phase stages are designing for reliability, prototyping and testing.
These are the phases the research focused on.
The Survey revealed that success sustainable organisation have been using product development, marketing and system engineering methodologies as one of their common weapon to stay in business and grow in today’s competitive market place.
This systematic approach process feedback diagram in product development has a lot of phase overlap. All phases interact even though there is still a feed process from one phase to the next. The process happens concurrently to ensure that all stages are considered at an earlier stage