Creating and delivering excellent products with market appeal, and attaining high levels of customer satisfaction requires an integrated approach to design, from the board of an organization to project managers and their multi-disciplinary teams.
Excellence in design is an important differentiating factor between competing products, and can be the key to company survival in increasingly competitive world markets. The complex intellectual challenges presented in the design of manufactured products demand that the process is managed effectively if the outcome is to be successful.
BS 7000-2 is a guide to managing the design process by providing guidance for the various departments and people involved in developing and managing the design of manufactured products. It covers every stage of the design process from product concept through to delivery, use, and end-of-life processing.
This revision incorporates end-of-life thinking and principles developed in the BS 8887 series of standards – which aims to help designers incorporate end-of-life/sustainable design thinking and principles into their designs right from the very start of the process. The concepts, principles and quality system elements described in BS 7000-2 are applicable to all forms of manufactured products. Ultimately, it enables products to be produced on time and within budget, meet customer and organisational requirements.
“Good quality design is critical to the reputation of organizations and an important contributor to efficiency,” Dan Palmer head of market development for manufacturing at BSI said. “BS 7000-2 will help senior executives, project managers and others involved in the design process to create and implement an effective design policy. Whether these activities are carried out by a single person, a small team or a number of different people across the organization, BS 7000-2 encourages transparency at all stages of the process and helps teams to know what they need to do.”
What BS 7000-2 does:
- Recognises that small enterprises or those specializing in one-off products or special purpose end-of-life equipment often need to adapt the process to suit their method of operation
- Gives guidance on the application of general principles and techniques to the management of design, raising awareness of management issues and emphasizing the need for an integrated approach to the design of products
- Sets out the tasks and responsibilities for creating and implementing an effective design policy for senior executives, project managers and those involved in the design process
- Enables an integrated multi-disciplinary approach to design to be taken for complex products. Such as where guidance on the management of innovation, service design and construction design is needed in BS 7000-1, BS 7000-3 and BS 7000-4 respectively
- Complements ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems Standard
BS 7000-2 was developed using a consensus-based collaboration between representatives from Brunel University, IED (Institution of Engineering Designers), Oxford Brookes University, Railway Industry Association (RIA), University of Bath, University of Sussex and various individual capacity experts from a range of industries and sectors including aerospace, defence and manufacturing amongst others.