Materials and Innovative Product Development

Book excerpt: Innovation in product design starts with materials. Developing successful commercial products demands a sound understanding of the materials that go into those products—their uses, their costs, their lifetime performance. However, the valuable knowledge of materials engineers is often not fully leveraged in the creative phase of the product design cycle. Gessinger seeks to bridge this gap that exists in many companies.Written from the bottom-up perspective of the engineer or scientist on a product design team, Materials and Innovative Product Design introduces business, economics and strategic product development to the materials specialist and demystifies materials selection for other members of the design team and manufacturing management. Using case studies from innovative organizations, such as ABB, and successful start-ups, such as NDC, Day4Energy, and Metoxit, Gessinger illustrates how the integration of different engineering and business disciplines can power innovation in the design process. By addressing the real world needs of innovators, this book allows the reader to unlock the potential of the new material types that have been changing the face of product design and deploy an integrated business approach to materials selection and the design process. - Allows engineers to develop a fuller understanding of economics and business objectives in order to contribute more effectively to innovative product design - Introduces the business opportunities and practical challenges of deploying new material types to design and manufacturing management - Illustrates how to harness the power of R&D within the design cycle through case studies of innovative and successful organizations that have brought new materials technologies to known markets and known materials to new markets