• A whole new vehicle concept was required, supported by rigorous product definition which was directly related to customer and commercial requirements
• The process needed to derive a specification that gave maximum product appeal, at minimum product cost

• Time and effort employed at this stage can save money, time, and confusion downstream
• A relational matrix was established using the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach
• Customer requirements, competitor benchmarking, future trends, current systems and technologies, performance modelling, value engineering and costs, were all inter-related
• Inter-disciplinary teams were established to contribute knowledge to the process, and to assist in the project outcome
• A large display matrix was created for team meetings, and for record retention

• Processes were developed that involved all the appropriate teams, and created ownership of the outcome
• A vast amount of knowledge was contained in a single matrix document (very small extract from entire document shown below)
• The what-if scenarios could be easily assessed using the tool
• A robust definition of the concept was made, so that subsequent down-stream activities were soundly based

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