Once one or two preliminary concepts for a product, process, or material change have been selected, it’s time to dive in and evaluate them at an even deeper level, but at a cost that is affordable and at fast timing.
Understanding what you don’t know about the idea is key. Tools that highlight what is known and unknown about the idea, analyses for potential failure modes and that generate ways to simplify the process are available for this stage.
Modeling and simulation and other analyses that enable “water to be run through the pipes” for an idea before major investment enables mistakes to be made at small scale where the costs are low and the learning is high. There are a number of modeling and simulation tools available and we can recommend the type most appropriate for your goals and stage of development.
We have experience using Mind Maps, FMECA, Ishikawa diagrams, functional block diagrams, object-process modeling, simplicity assessments, and computer simulations for initially evaluating process concepts. With more process definition, first principles mathematical models, Modelica-based simulations, and finite element modeling and computational fluid dynamics can be used to assess feasibility. Later in the development process, statistical design of experiments (DOE) and machine learning models that can leverage your existing data can be used for prediction and process understanding.