Develop Products Right! Design for Supportability
During new product development, R&D engineers need to consider a wide range of often-conflicting requirements, including product features, cost, quality and manufactureability. Therefore, it is not surprising that support requirements are often neglected. However, support is an essential factor for achieving customer satisfaction in many industries, and so ensuring that products are easy and economical to support is a priority. Customer support managers know this but often have problems in convincing their R&D colleagues. This article looks at the issues involved in achieving Design for Supportability – the full evaluation of support requirements at the design stage.