Proceedings of the TMCE 2006, April 18–22, 2006, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Edited by Horváth and Duhovnik  2004 ??press, City, ISBN 1 FINDING, CONTROLLING OR CHARACTERIZING IDEAS: WHICH PRIORITY FOR THE ENTERPRISE? Jorge MAYA Product Design Engineering Department EAFIT University Colombia jmaya_fr@yahoo.fr ABSTRACT Finding the new benefits of a product which are perceived as such by the end-user can depend on a big number of factors. At least forty factors are mentioned in the literature. Among these factors, industrial experience indicates that three can be determining: the efficacy of product idea generation, fostering the traceability and capitalization of the ideas, and the characterization of the gap between the benefit wished by the designers and the benefit perceived by the users. We wanted to determine, in fine, the extent and the importance granted to these problems by design practitioners in industry. A thorough study of the relevant literature for the three problems mentioned above was carried out. Variables and indicators for each problem were identified. A questionnaire comprising a significant number of half-open questions was drawn up and then it was answered by 87 design practitioners of all types of manufactured products and that at some point intervene in the research of new benefits for the product. A descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of the results was then carried out. The present research shows that there is no an apparent statistical fact allowing to determine the relative importance of the problems. KEYWORDS: Ideation, traceability, capitalisation, perceived benefit, subjectivity 1. INTRODUCTION One of the key factors for the success of a product on the market is whether it presents a new benefit which is perceived as such by the end-user (Cooper 1999). A bibliographical study showed that the search for such a benefit is a complex problem; at least 40 factors were listed (Badke-Schaub and Frankenberger 1999; Shah, Kulkarni et al. 2000). Among these factors, industrial experience shows that three are in strong relation: Firstly, the generation and choice of the ideas which bring new benefits; this factor is of paramount importance for innovation design (Cooper 1999). Secondly, the traceability and the capitalization of subjective information of the product; this factor contributes enormously to the communication and availability of information as components of a successful solution search (Badke-Schaub and Frankenberger 1999). Thirdly, the formation of the gap between the benefit wished by the designers since the beginning of the design process and the benefit perceived by the users at the end of the process, which is also very important for innovation design (Guenand, Carnus et al. 2002). In the following paragraphs we will establish our research questions, we will discuss the results of research published until today and we will define our objectives. 1.1. The generation and choice of ideas which bring new benefit for the user The stage of product idea generation is one of the most critical of the design process: during the upstream stages of the design it is generated 80% of the added value of the product and the majority of its development costs are committed (Midler 1998). 80% of the sales of certain industries are done on products which have been on the market for less than three years. For this reason, the generation of quality ideas (realizable and that respect the design requirements) requires a great reactivity of the companies and a reduction of development times (Vadcard 1996). A study carried out by the French Ministry for Industry established that between 1992 to 1994, 51% of SME created new products (Ministère-de- l'industrie 1995). If the principal qualities of the added value of the product are established from the beginning, the great number of products which fail on the market (88% for a structured project (Breton 1996)) lead one to suspect that one of the reasons of this failure must be the quality of the initial ideas (defining quality as a measurement of the feasibility of the idea and of how it fills the design specifications). In addition, it is beneficial to have a big number of good quality ideas from the very start of the design process because, at this time, there is a greater margin of freedom ("capacity of action") which makes it possible to seize or abandon opportunities,