How product design is applied in decision-making of Dell, Inc. essay
The aim of this paper is to analyze how product design is applied in decision-making of Dell, Inc., to consider product life cycles in this company, and to consider how different issues for product development are applied within the organization.
Dell, Inc. was focused on customer-oriented design and manufacturing since its very creation. Its build-on-order manufacturing process is focused on the principles of optimized costs and is driven by customer preferences. With Dell’s expansion to foreign markets and differentiation of its product lines, the company outlined two customer segments: relationship and transactional segment (Carbaugh, 2010). The former includes corporate, government and medium business, while the latter includes home and small business. The needs of the relationship segment in fact form the variety of Dell’s B2B products. For smaller (transactional) segment, Dell offers a variety of products for local medium and small businesses, and new solutions for home users. In general, product design in Dell is driven by the needs and tendencies of the market. In its turn, product design and the segment addressed by the product have an impact on distribution and advertising decisions.
Another vivid example of how the design affects decision-making of Dell, is the recent green initiative of the company. Dell is managing environmental impact of its products through the whole life cycle (Carbaugh, 2010); the company tends to use the environment-friendly materials and is going to cover the full cycle from manufacturing to reuse or recycling of its products with minimal impact on environment.
As within any organization, the products of Dell first appear in product development phase, then pass to introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Due to Dell’s just-in-time assembly system, the whole product life cycle there constitutes 6-9 months (Fogliatto, 2010); product development is mostly customer-driven, and due to this, the products are quickly introduced and pass to growth phase. E-commerce decisions of Dell also contribute to quick transition to growth and maturity phases (Plunkett, 2007). After some 6-7 months, the products are already at maturity stage. Again, due to Dell optimized production and distribution strategy, few items live to their decline; most often, new products are offered to various segments of customers.
In general, the customization of products allows Dell to attract customers, quickly adjust their manufacturing process to changing demands of the market, and provides optimized costs. However, the innovations at Dell and the quality of service have decreased to a certain extent (Ignatiuk, 2009), perhaps, due to intensive growth and expansion strategy. Thus, recent manufacturing trends within Dell are rather directed to product development and innovation, than to classic expansion. Moreover, Dell aligns its product development with ecological and environment standards, which also greatly contributes to changes in product development.
