Design and Applied Technology (Secondary 4-6)
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Customers are to allocate their resources, such as money and time, for goods and services that
they enjoy. In short, they want value for money.
In general, customers consider price the most important factor for commodity goods, such as
candle for lighting, and select products as cheap as possible if everything is equal. Therefore,
if a product can differentiate itself from others, such as having features of colour, texture and
perfume, that product is no longer a commodity product but a ‘designer product’. A designer
product means that it can be sold at a higher price for the value it has been added.
Value can also be added through using environmental friendly materials and adopting
environmental friendly manufacturing processes. Incorporating socially concerned value into
a product permits a higher price and thicker profit margin.
Of course, the value added to a product should be in line with customers’ lifestyle and culture.
Therefore, a marketing team is set up, officially or unofficially, to understand the latest trend
and customer wants so as to develop products accordingly.
Creating a brand and thus may or may not be more profitable than being a trend follower
because design-oriented companies have to invest heavily in research and development.
Firstly, a marketing team is responsible for understanding customer needs, such as user
emotions, ergonomics and culture. Secondly, with the research results, the design team has to
brainstorm for possible products. Thirdly, the company has to evaluate the candidate
products’ effects on the target customers for deciding which product(s) should be produced.
Target customers may be invited to join at any stage for giving initial opinions, testing the
product(s), commenting on the product(s) produced, etc.
Unlike the traditional industrial products, a styling design can reflect not only a product’s
intrinsic function, but also its target customers’ spiritual demand, such as a fashionable
outlook. A good example in product styling design is the iPod; the latest model does not only
maintain the inherent functions offered by the iPod, but its outlook and features have been
modernized by using wider screen and speaker etc. Combining this trend with manufacturing
flexibility may pose a challenge to mass customization. Mass customization refers to the
production of goods and services for individual (or smaller groups of) customers in a similar
efficiency level of mass production. A good example of a product styling design is iPod.
3.3.2 Corporate Strategies in Product Design and Manufacturing: OEM, ODM and
OBM
Many Hong Kong manufacturers adopt OEM, i.e. Original Equipment Manufacturing. The
manufacturers receive orders with designs and specifications from originating companies (or
brand companies), and produce accordingly. The products produced are sold under the brand
companies’ names or brands. It was especially popular before 1980’s when Hong Kong’s
production costs were still low. The brand companies were mainly foreign companies. For
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