Nowadays in a turbulent market, developing and launching a new product is one of most competitive strategies implemented by many large and small enterprises. In fact, launching a new product depends upon the performance of four critical functions: design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing. Their performances would increase or decrease the total time-to-market and consequently time-to-money. Time-to-market would be improved if the manufacturing system can diminish time-to-volume/quality/cost during production start-up phase. In order to overcome the impediment during a start-up phase, the significant parameters which are influencing a production start-up phase should be identified and managed. Hence, a system-wide approach would facilitate a product realization process so as to achieve global optimization throughout the entire process. One of such systems is Concurrent Engineering which can be applied owing to being enable to choose the best practice to improve product introduction process, being capable to improve cross functional integration and communication, and being empowered to apply a set of comprehensive methods for design analysis so that designers can select the most optimal design solution which is not only considering the design constraints, but also taking the constraints of production system, logistics and distribution into account. Hence, it can cover majority of problems in start-up phase which are generated due to lack of empathy between design and manufacturing. This research studied the significant parameters influencing a production start-up phase. Then, it investigated whether the principle of concurrent engineering would support an efficient start-up phase. The selected research methodology is based on a conceptual and supportive literature review of the current scholars. The research design is according to a three-step process which is applied to catch most relevant literatures. The research implements an analogy reasoning logic to establish the outcome of the research through the comparison between principles of a concurrent engineering program and significant parameters. As a result of the research, the significant parameters are identified, in addition, a managerial framework is structured that can present the requirements to manage an efficient start-up phase. Moreover, the results indicate how a concurrent engineering program would support a start-up phase.

This dissertation collects principles and insights from various sources related to design for the developing world. These principles and insights form part of the foundation that can guide other engineers working in this area. The sources are the published literature, practitioners, non-governmental organizations, and our own field studies. From the engineering literature, we identified nine principles to guide engineers as they design poverty alleviating products for developing communities. Each principle is articulated, supporting literature is described, an in-depth example from the literature is given, followed by suggestions for how the principle can be applied to day-to-day engineering activities. Next, the work from engineering practitioners is studied. Information from various field reports was analyzed, a list of seven common pitfalls was derived, and the Design for the Developing World Canvas is introduced. This tool is similar to a Business Model Canvas, but it focuses on the product development process rather than the development of a business model. The Design for the Developing World Canvas can be used by design teams to facilitate discussions and make decisions that will allowthem to avoid the common pitfalls identified. A case study is then shared from a non-governmental organization called WHOlives.org about their experience with the Village Drill, a human-powered machine that digs boreholes for water wells. The case study outlines the development of the drill, a timeline of its implementation in 15 countries across three continents, specific values related to cashflows of the organization, and a conservative estimate of their impact in developing communities. A study of our original research conducting field studies using a technique called ethnography is then shared. This study was conducted in four countries on four continents and shows the impact of various conditions on the ability of the design team to collect information that is useful for making product development decisions. The conditions in this study include cultural familiarity, language fluency, gender and age of the respondent, information source type, use of prototypes, and others. The results can guide design teams as they make decisions about who to include on the design team, which projects to pursue, and how to conduct their own field studies. Lastly, conclusions related to design for the developing world are made based on the work presented and potential areas of future work are outlined.