Transcript

Brief Introduction:

Welcome to the Week 2 of the course on Design Thinking for Agriculture Implements. In week 1 we have introduced, What is design?What is design thinking?. This is explained with a few examples. Then introduction to manufacturing is given. Need and outcomes of design thinking, that has been discussed. In this week I will discuss about Product Characteristics.

Product Characteristics:

When I say product characteristics. The product characteristics could be thought of as specifications, dimensions or attributes. I am not talking about that. I would be talking about the design viewpoint, and in this I will discuss. When we design a product. What we think of. What are the primary use or the primary function of the product? What are the other functions? Do we need to consider the cost of a product? Do we need to employ some aesthetics into it? Do we need to consider the maintenance aspects in that? These things we will discuss.

A product in general as Philip Kotler said. Product can be anything that can be offered to someone to satisfy his need or want. That is a general definition. Product can be a consumer product. When I say product, that can be a consumer product or an industrial product. This is a product. Now consumer products are the consumer goods that we choose like the grocery, that we have in our home. And the durables like refrigerator and electronics or electrical equipment.

When we talk about the industrial product. Industrial product is or can be a machinery or an equipment. It can be raw material. It can be services. It can be electricity and fuel. When we are talking about the product characteristics in this lecture, I will be specifically talking about the machinery and equipment. However to explain a few concepts here, I might take certain examples here from the daily use products; that we have been using, or we are using. Now what product characteristics would be discussed in this lecture. These are listed here. The major product characteristics are,

•  Purposeful or performance aspects. When I say purposeful. What is the need for which the product is designed. Like consider this stylus. This stylus, the basic function is to provide marks on a tab. Now what is the need of this color. What is the need of this port here. What is the need of this cone here. These things are all designed based on certain design parameters. Those would come in operational or aesthetic aspects. The basic purpose is to provide marks. The basic purpose of different machines that we will discuss, different machines and handtools; that I will just discuss when I will explain this purposeful and performance aspects.
• Next is operational aspects. I have developed an equipment. I have developed or designed the machine that could reduce the effort. But how to operate that machine. Could we operate that machine by just pushing a button? We will need some source of energy. Or could we operate it by using hand. Or could it be foot operated. What are the operational aspects? When we design the product. This we will discuss.
• Then we will discuss the aesthetics. Aesthetics is giving appearance or some appealing effect to our product. Can a product be sold without aesthetics? There is certain range or certain priorities when we talk about aesthetics, with respect to different kind of products. Like in case of jewellery; in case of clothing. Jewellery is just sold because of aesthetics, because that is the basic purpose of that. In case of nails and screws do we need aesthetics. The appearance in case of nails and screws is not at all important, is not at all required. This we will discuss.
• Then price to customer. How do we cost the product. Cost the product, I mean how does the costing of the product happen. When we will develop an equipment for the agriculture, we have to design, we have to see what are the various components of the cost. Fixed cost, variable cost, material cost, labor cost, what will be the operational cost. All those factors have to be considered.
• Then next is ease of maintenance. I have developed an implement. But I should also be able to maintain and repair it in a periodical manner. And sometimes corrective maintenance also has to happen.

So all these aspects have to be considered when we design a product. So these product characteristics I will discuss.

Purposeful Aspects:

From purposeful, here we mean the elemental. Or I could say basic or fundamental.

• What is the product design for? So after determining the marketing possibilities, the functional scope has to be carefully analyzed and properly exemplified.
• The fundamental reason for product demand is implied by the functional or operational aspects. This is also called as functional aspect. I will discuss this while taking a few examples.

There are often multiple functional aspects or purposeful aspects, and the uses of the product can be left to the customer’s choice. The period to exploit these characteristics can be decided by the customer. These are a few hand tools. So just to discuss the purposeful aspects.

• What is the basic purpose of a pitchfork? This is a pitchfork. The basic purpose of this is. This has long handle. We can lift and throw loose material such as hay, straw, leaves.
• This is a trowel. The basic purpose is digging in a very small area. To dig in a very large area, in place of trowel we use a spade.
• This is a shear. Just to trim a few prunings.
• This is a watering can. The basic purpose of the watering can is to water the plants or to provide some humidity in those case, or some spraying of pesticides, also has to happen when mixed with water. That also can happen with these hand tools.

So there are certain hand tools which have some basic purposes. But if you see this pitchfork has a handle and this handle has a shade. This has a shape like this. You see this curvature here. Okay, you see this is a handle. What are the dimensions of this handle? This has certain functions in it. If I say purposeful or functional aspect. The function can be of two major types, when we talk about a product. One is use function, one is sell function. Use function is the primary function for which it is designed. Sell function is that makes it to sell. This green color, this is a sell function. This curvature. This is a use function. This will come in ergonomics, that will come in operational aspects.

So the point I am trying to make in this slide is that. When we talk about the purposeful aspects, all these rake, then pitchfork, spade. They can come with a single attachment. This is a handle. This all can be attached here. So we can also have a multi-function product. Like in the case of Combine. When we say combine, it is a harvester that helps to trim or shear the crop. It has a thresher attached with it. Thresher makes the crops to reach or package finally. That is then sent to the factories for the post processing.

Another thing, an example I can take here. These are the different parts of a tractor. Tractor is the most common power tool that is used in agriculture. The tractor is the name given to this equipment because it has high tractive effort or torque set at slow speeds for the purposes of hauling trailer or machinery used in agriculture. This is very useful. So in these different components or different parts of the tractor, if you say the cab. It also has a function. So what I would like to say here is that in an equipment each of the component or sub-assembly has its own function. Like these mirrors, they provide protection. Protection from wind. Then rims and wheels, they provide rolling. Then PTO shaft, it provides transmission. Each of the component should or does have a function. If it doesn’t have a function, then it can be eliminated. This can come when we talk about the cost cutting in products. So this is the purposeful or the functional aspect of the product design or the product aesthetics. I will discuss in lecture 2 of this week, the operational and other aspects.

Thank You.