Breakthrough Product Development: Market Competition and Conceptual Design

This volume shows how conceptual design can be approached systematically to create breakthrough products and improve existing ones under intense competition. It focuses on the fuzzy front end, where early decisions about product functions and architecture can strongly influence later competitiveness. The Innovative Design Thinking framework draws on propositional logic, Axiomatic Design Theory, and Relative Complexity Theory to make conceptual reasoning explicit, traceable, and teachable. The volume presents methods for concept formation, categorization, selection, zigzagging, root-cause diagnosis, partial redesign, and sequence management, together with human-led, AI-supported conceptual design agents and application examples. It is intended for advanced students, researchers, engineers, designers, product developers, and system architects seeking practical methods for developing logically feasible, functionally simple, physically viable, and competitive product concepts.