CHAPTER   4

Product Design

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

images  AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:

  • Explain the importance of the product design process and provide an overview of each step of the process.
  • Calculate the reliability and availability of a product or service.
  • Understand the technologies involved in designing new products and their related production processes.
  • Utilize techniques for analyzing design failures and eliminating unnecessary design features.
  • Explain why and how each step of the product lifecycle can be changed for improved environmental stewardship, and provide examples of programs that support green efforts.
  • Use quality function deployment as a design tool.

DESIGNER JEANS

More important than price or durability is the cut, the fit or the “look” of a pair of jeans. This is especially true of designer jeans made from premium denim where cost is not a limiting factor. These jeans sell from $200 to $800 a pair and are made primarily in the United States and Japan.

One of the factors that makes these jeans so desirable is the quality of the denim fabric. Japan has numerous small fabric mills that produce only premium denim. Cole Mills in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the primary producer of premium denim in the United States. Both Cole and the Japanese mills ...

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