Product and Services Design

Design is one of the components of the operations management. Specifically, product and service design is one of the processes of the design. As states in Morris (2009, p.22), Product design is defined as the idea generation, concept development, testing and manufacturing or implementation of a physical object or service. â€Å"Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service, in order to improve its quality, the interaction between service provider and customers and the customer's experience. Service design methodologies are used to plan and organize people, infrastructure, communication and material components used in a service. The increasing importance and size of the service sector, both in terms of people employed and economic importance, requires services to be accurately designed in order for service providers to remain competitive and to continue to attract customers.† (Morelli, 2002, p.3-17) According to Slack, N., Chambers, S. & Johnston, R. (2010, p. 113-134), good products and services design is important for both companies and its customers. It fulfils the customers’ wants from the product and service design and also generates the profit for the companies. The performance of the product and service design is measured by its quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. The stages of product and service design include concept design, concept screening, preliminary design, evaluation & improvement and prototype and final design. All of these stages finally run out a fully developed product. As a result, a concept, a package and a process is designed in the product and service design. â€Å"A concept is the understanding of the nature, use and value of the service or product; a package of ‘component’ products and services that provide those benefits defined in the concept; the process defines the way in which the component products and services will be created and delivered.† (Slack, N., Chambers, S. & Johnston, R., 2010)