A concept paper, what for? The objective is to design & develop products that solve the problems of our customers at the price they are willing to pay while insuring business profit. To build a shared vision on the product to be developed, the concept paper is used during the early front end phase. A presentation by Agnes Cavrel at Journée Lean Engineering 2016.

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Concept Paper
26 MAI 2016

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What is the biggest waste
associated to the development of a
new product ?

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To design a product that doesn’t
fit the customer needs
Added cost for customers when
the product doesn’t solve their
problem completely or when they
have to compensate, fix and
maintain it
Overpricing regarding to
expected quality and functionality

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key contributors to
customers value
Engineers are …
Each solution’s design decision lead to
create value or wastes for customer/user
at each step of the customer’s experience
Purchasing
Installing
Deployment
Usage
Maintenance
Support
Upgrading Dismentling
Customer/user’s experience
OK/NOK OK/NOK OK/NOK OK/NOK OK/NOK OK/NOK

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 Engineers need to understand the gap
between what the customer’s really needs
and what he experiences with current
solution

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What do they need?

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This is not a faster horse

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The objective is to design & develop products that
solve the problems of our customers at
the price they are willing to pay while
insuring business profit
To build a shared vision on the product to be
developed, the concept paper is used
during the early front end phase

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What is a concept paper ?
A brief written document (A3) to easily share key information in the
organization
Who are the target customers ?
What are the problems that we want to solve for them ?
What are the critical product performances ?
What are the main gaps with our current product to be solved ? With our
competitors ?
What is the concept for the new product ?
What are the target cost & schedule ?
What do we already know ? What are the main gaps of knowledge ?

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Identify the target customers/users
The target customers/users are organized into
one or several market segments of individuals
that
seek the same value &
have common needs

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What is the user’s experience you are trying to deliver with
the product or competing products. By using the product, the
user will experience value and wastes
What are the current user’s Problems that our
Products must solve:
“Why would customers purchase our product?”
What are the issues caused by using the product & why the
product doesn’t meet the users’ expectations?
Understand what delights or annoys our customers/users

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Engineers must have a deep
understanding of what
customers really value,
the job they might want a
product to do for them, what
might delight them
Learning and building up knowledge
about customers
Define the Perceived value

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Define the Perceived value
From Customer/User perspective
Perceived Value =
Benefices
Sacrifices

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Perceived Value Benefice
Functional - product’s ability to perform its utilitarian
purpose
- Measurable performance & attractive features
- Quality Attributes : quality (e.g. conformity to SoW), reliability,
maintainability, safety, availability, durability, etc.
Emotional
- Image, brand name, emotion, fun, aesthetic/appearance,
advertising, etc.

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Perceived Value Costs
Monetary component
- Purchasing price “Am I willing to spend this much money for this
much value?” = value-for-money
- Operating cost (installation, usage, services, evolution, …)
Nonmonetary components
- Time & effort expenditure: learnability, deliverability, …
- Psychological – emotional: stress, risk, frustration, anger, discomfort,

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Define what values for customer
Thales Angénieux

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Where are the knowledge gaps to fill ?
Identify the right problems to
solve for our customers &
the related knowledge gaps to fill
Gap to fill to be more attractive
=> Innovation

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What value
customers
Target product
requirements
within target costs
Set the product’s requirements target that
maximize customer’s value and minimize his wastes

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Derive from the gaps which product’s parts should support the
evolutions or innovations enabling to fill these gaps and those that
must remain unchanged

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Concept Paper : <nom> Owner : jj/mm/aa
Pour qui ?
Penser à une personne représentative du client; si possible une personne physique à qui on pourrait parler ; le focus doit
porter sur un groupe connu et non sur un client « générique ».
Il peut y avoir plusieurs clients (payeur, utilisateurs, …), il est important de les identifier tous, mais il faut aussi définir qui va
porter le « Wahou » sur le produit.
Quoi ?
Écrire ce que l’on cherche à faire de façon claire et succincte
Quel problème essaie-t-on de résoudre pour le client?
Pour mes clients, quelle est la valeur associée à mon produit ?
[VSM client] [OCD] [Use Case]
V1.0
Comment ?
Décrire le concept
Favoriser une formulation simple et percutante qui exprime un trade off : « Un zoom
d’une grande précision MAIS pas cher ».
Le concept permet d’animer les débats avec les ingénieurs
Performances critiques
En fonction des préférences/de la valeur client, on identifie les performances clés.
Si on a plusieurs clients, on valorise ces performances pour chacun d’entre eux pour identifier les performances sur lesquelles
ils sont d’accord et celles où cela diverge.
Dans ce cas, le concept paper doit permettre de comprendre la performance recherchée sur le prochain produit, et
éventuellement sur les suivants (où veut-on être dans 2 ans, 5 ans ?)
Dans la mesure du possible, on représente également la valorisation de ces performances pour les produits concurrents.
[Radar Clients] [Radar concurrence] [Modèle de Kano] [Key Performance Attribute]
Target Cost?
Il doit être cohérent avec les hypothèses associées à l’innovation, au reuse, au
changement de technologie, …
[Target Cost]
Planning cible ?
[Project Milestones]
Gaps de connaissance
Que sait-on ?
Sait on évaluer les performances critiques sur nos produits existants ?
Quels sont les sujets complexes ? Les interfaces critiques ?
Quels sont les sujets sur lesquels on choisit d’amener de l’innovation ? Quel type d’innovation ?
[Mur client] [Radar Produit] [Trade-off curve]
Qu’est ce qui ne change pas ?
Quelles sont les hypothèses de Reuse, sur tous les aspects incluant l’indus, la
production, les S/T, …
Quelle est la connaissance qu’il faut réutiliser ?
Qu’est ce que l’on cherche à faire ?
Qu’est ce qui est bien ? C’est quoi, bien faire ?
Qu’est ce qu’il faut comprendre ? Apprendre ?

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Main benefices to use a concept paper
A shared vision established from the very beginning, identifying the
main challenges, constraints
A support to communicate with all actors
A way to smoothly reconcile the point of view beetween
marketing/sales, engineers, supply chain
A first step before setting up an Product development Obeya

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