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How to Design Better Products with Advanata

1–2 minutes

Advanata is a remarkably versatile tool. In this example, we’ll explore how it can be used to analytically design a new product. Though considered an intermediate level application, it’s approachable and opens the door to some very interesting use cases.

Product Design Problem

An appliance manufacturer wants to design a new product aimed at specific customer segments while leveraging features from their existing lineup, without developing entirely new features.

An appliance manufacturer has a number of products each with unique features that target different customer segments and would like to design a new product.

Product Design Formulation

A smart choice is made to use analytics to design the new product. Often, the questions focus on underlying analytics sub-problems rather than the main business problem. Once this is corrected, the true problem becomes clear, its components are easily identified, and each can be mapped to the appropriate part of the business problem framework.

Appliance manufacturer decides to use analytics to design the new product. A number of research problems can be formulated such as "let's evaluate our current product features", Do we have insights on our customer preferences", "What features do our customers want?". However, the full scope of the real problem is "Which product features best attract our target customer segments?" which is a business problem that can be easily assigned to the business problem framework where total features is the resource, customer segments are the goals, and unique features are the options.

Product Design Process

Solving the problem is straightforward. The customer leads by entering the business problem components and defining goal targets in Advanata. The analyst estimates rates using sales data, and the customer can review and adjust them based on their business insight. The main advantage is that outputs are expressed as actual product features that are immediately actionable for design.

Appliance manufacturer (customer) wants the new product to target 25% residential and 75% commercial customers for sales. The customer enters the basic business framework components into Advanata and the analyst can refine the rates using the feature and customer matrix. Advanata then generates the optimal product features according to the desired target goals. Note that actual not hidden features are generated.

This simple example is only a starting point. Advanata makes it easy to expand with feature families, interdependencies, supply chains, and goals like product cost and manufacturing time.

Similar Problems

This product design process works for a wide variety of products and services. As long as the customer can identify the unique features of their offerings, they can create new ones tailored to achieve their evolving goals.

Similar problems to the appliance manufacturer problem are: Creating a new ad for specific audiences drawing on elements from past campaigns, Developing a new policy for regulatory approval based on components of past policies. Planning a new building to engage target demographics inspired by amenities in existing buildings. Adding novel features is inherently a research problem and actual features are needed rather than hidden features for product design.

Solving Unique Problems

Advanata’s standout design feature is its focus on practicality. Even non-analytics specialists can easily structure problems and get outputs ready for immediate use. This is just one example of the many applications possible, and as customers grow comfortable with Advanata, even more innovative uses are sure to emerge.

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