How designers strategically manage product portfolios

Abstract

The continuous management of a manufacturing company's product portfolio is a key aspect of successful product development. Managers determine when and which products should be updated or terminated. This process influences inhouse Industrial design teams, thus prompting a range of development strategies they might deploy. In product portfolio management there is a tension between standardisation and customisation. From a marketing perspective this is may be addressed through brand DNA, from engineering through modularization. The design perspective (merging those two) has been ill-explored, particularly from professional designers. Previously we proposed a theoretical model describing different industrial design projects and how they influence industrial designers strategic thinking. It was developed through literature reviews and examples found in manufacturing industry. Through a multi-case interview study with 16 participants from five manufacturing companies with strong brands, this article aims to empirically evaluate the proposed model. The results show that the respondents could describe all but one industrial design projects, the cause maybe that they had not been exposed to saving a company by doing a total makeover.