The Prophase Research Of The Product Design Development To Map The Processes

The systematic arrangements of design prophase can ensure the success of design project and enhance the design quality of new product. Design prophase refers to the preparatory period before making specific design solution in the project. It is one of the important sub-phases of NPD(new product development), which is the necessary key for the leader to look for the NPD chance, the main period for the management to organize the design resource, and the important process for the designers to collect the information and prepare for the innovation. Official, professional and systemic product prophase program can promote the formation of NPD strategy, project management and design cognition innovation. But, the former researches are lack of systemic descriptions of the prophase process, analysis of the influencing factors & their relationships, and the development and summaries of design prophase preparation methods. Therefore, the research on the design prophase process intergrating the technical, social and cognitive processes has important academic value and practical significance.The basic concept of design prophase is defined at first. With the idea of the science of design research, the activities of prophase design are observed and analyzed by the methods of case analysis, the semi-structure interview and the questionnaire survey. Then, the design prophase process descriptive model with different abstract levels is established. With defining the state of design prophase, project objects and the means of preparation, cognitive maps are introduced to explain various factors influencing the design prophase and their relationships among each other. The perspective framework model of the design prophase process is established on the general problem solver theory, the rooted theory and the waterfall software development model. The methods combined with the characters of different activities' types are brought forward by applying management science, cognitive psychology and design science principles to improve the quality of preparation. The perspective frameworks model is tested by the practical cases. Finally, based on both the knowledge management and the features of the design knowledge, the design knowledge management is applied in the prophase preparations for the designers to study, imitate and reflect to enhance the quality and efficiency of design prophase preparations.This paper includes 5 innovation points:1) This research expands the connotation of design prophase concept, which is developed from management field to the design studies field. By summarizing the characters of different types activities of design prophase, the activities of prophase design are divided into three categories according to main participants, logic relationship and goals: the new product planning, design project management and design innovation cognition preparation. The design prophrase concept can help to understand the design process integrated with different characters of courses.2) The fuzzy nature of the design prophase is summarized, and the reason of uncertainty is explained. The information frameworks of design front-end are formed to search for the design information and eliminate the uncertainties of design prophase comprehensively and systematically.3) The descriptive model of design prophase with different abstract level is established by the social scientific research method, which can be applied to analyze the different situations easily, to improve the understanding of prophase activities in the cross-field team and to lay the foundation for mutual recognition and cooperation.4) The research proposes the methods to establish and develop design requirements, the methods for client cooperation and team cooperation in the project management, the methods for designers to promote design innovation and reduce design fixation. These methods are proved valuable in the practice.5) The design knowledge management is applied in design prophase preparation, which can transform scattered fragments of information into systematic applicable knowledge for designers to share, spread and reuse. It is a practical tool for industrial design organizations to reinforce innovative and competitive abilities.In design studies, only by observing and analyzing the design activities can the nature and features of design activities be discovered, can the effective methods and tools supporting product design innovation be come up. The research on design prophrase is based on the systems of the science of design research. In design prophase research, a theoretical foundation to help the manufacture transferring and improving the new product research is formed; and a theory foundation to standardize the new product design development is established; new research direction for computer-aided industrial design is pointed out.