DEVELOPING A BICYCLE EXAMPLE AS SUPPORT FOR TEACHING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Based on previous experiences, making the subject Product Development understandable for the students’ needs more and clear examples. In this case, it is easier for the students to understand if the products selected as examples are familiar to them.

The idea was to make the students taking the roles of engineers, costumers, and user of the product which would be developed. That is the reason to select a student bicycle as example. A questionnaire, which was prepared and sent to students in different European country, was used to collect the voice of the customer. Based on the gathered information, the process of product development was applied to achieve a conceptual design based on customers’ requirements.

This paper is presenting how a student bicycle example was developed and used in a product development course. In the preparation of the example two final year students were involved in cooperation with the authors of this paper. The result from this work was improved and modified by the authors to be suitable as teaching example.