Scaling
You can scale up or scale down an existing design either to make small improvements in quality or to achieve a major new effect.
Re-Proportioning
A product may be improved by changing its proportions. For example, consider the history of the automobile tire.
Engineering analysis has advanced radically, particularly by using computers with techniques such as finite element analysis and complex number-crunching programs which had been impractical before. It has become possible to proportion and size electrical circuits and components and mechanical structures and parts with much less reliance on judgment and large factors of safety. Old products can now be safely and economically re-proportioned by using such analysis.
Adding and Subtracting Features
A product may be improved by adding and subtracting features. We are all familiar with the continual stream of new features in such consumer products as TV sets and automobiles.
A product can be improved by eliminating obsolescent features. Tire pumps are now omitted from automobiles.
(Do you know the engineering distinction between "obsolete" and "obsolescent"? A worn-out product is obsolete; an old-fashioned product is obsolescent.)
Materials
A product can be improved by changing materials. For example, in automobiles aluminum or plastic has replaced steel in many parts. As new materials are developed, each offers an opportunity to improve your product or reduce its cost.
Components
A product may be improved by changing components. As with materials, new components are continually being developed. Many offer opportunities to improve your product.
Manufacturing Methods
A product can be improved by changing the manufacturing methods used in producing it. Machined parts can be changed to die-cast or to powder metallurgy parts. Small changes may make automatic assembly possible. New manufacturing techniques, such as laser machining, are developed occasionally, and some may provide opportunities to improve your product or at least to reduce its cost. It may be necessary to make detail design changes to be able to utilize a new technique.
Performance Ratings
The performance of the product may be increased or decreased. For example, the power of an automobile engine may be decreased to reduce pollution and gasoline consumption. When gasoline is cheaper and catalytic converters are available, the power of the engine may be increased to attract customers.
Combining or Subdividing Parts
Parts and subassemblies may be either combined or divided to reduce manufacturing cost, improve appearance, reduce maintenance cost, increase reliability, or for other reasons. The part change may include a manufacturing-process change. For example, two machined parts may be combined into a single casting. In electronics there is a continuing flood of new integrated circuits which combine previously separate circuits.
Modularizing
The product may be modularized both to reduce manufacturing cost and to permit the generation of a line of products having different features, each provided by its own module. For example, computer systems are extreme cases of modularization, each large computer being a custom combination of standard modules.
Cosmetics
A product may be modified by changing its appearance and decoration. This is called "industrial design." Often such a change is intended not as a functional improvement but only to make the product conform to current fashion. Automobiles and other consumer products are examples. Clothing design is 99 percent appearance and decoration and 1 percent application of new materials. Athletic shoes are an exception: jogging shoes and ski boots incorporate new functional features.
Reducing Maintenance Needs
A product may be modified in many ways to reduce maintenance. Better bearings, exclusion of dirt, simplified adjustments, easier access, redesign of parts subject to failure-the list is endless.
Reducing Costs
A product can be modified in many ways to reduce costs. A common buzzword for this process is "value engineering." A more cynical expression is "second-guessing." By either term it is a good thing to do.
Adding or Reducing Models and Sizes
A product line can be improved by adding models and sizes. It is economical to use a table of "preferred numbers" to cover a range with a minimum number of sizes. For example, a line of motors may be made in theoretical sizes of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32...hp, rounded to 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50...hp. Thus any load can be served without either proliferating sizes or using a grossly oversize machine.
Families of products can be developed with ranges of features and with luxury and utility models. The consumer electronics and automobile industries practice this to extremes.
Export models can be added. This may require a major effort for metrication, conformance with foreign codes, and instructions and nameplates in foreign languages and symbols.
Simplifying
A product can be improved by simplifying it.
Trade Names
It sounds frivolous, but you can improve the commercial success of a product by coining trade names for the product and its features. Think of the products you know which are known by their trade names rather than by their functional descriptions.
There is no limit to the improvements you can make. The principal ingredient is really wanting to.
