Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302

Supply chains and compatibility among components

in product design
Jaya Singhal* , Kalyan Singhal
R.G. Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles Street,
Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA

Abstract
Two problems in designing and developing a product are directly tied into effective management of the marketing/operations
interface. We first consider technological incompatibility between pairs of alternatives for different components to identify
feasible product designs at various stages of product-development, from screening to the final design. We then consider
experts’ judgment on compatibility between pairs of alternatives for different attributes to generate product ideas and to
perform a preliminary screening. This expert-based approach can be used in conjunction with other expert-based approaches or
consumer-based approaches to identify potentially desirable product ideas. The methodology developed here includes explicit
simultaneous consideration of product, process, and supply chain development and it is applicable to the entire spectrum of
product novelty, from radical to incremental innovation. We also describe a real-world application. © 2002 Elsevier Science
B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Engineering/operations interface; Empirical research; Innovation; Marketing/operations interface; Product-development;
Technology management

1. The product design function
The process of designing and developing products
is linked to other areas of the business, such as man-
ufacturing, marketing, and supply chain management
(Fig. 1). The roles of these three interacting functions
have been widely emphasized in the literature on prod-
uct design (Clark, 1989; Clark and Fujimoto, 1991;
Griffin and Hauser, 1996; Handfield et al., 1999;
Karlsson et al., 1998; Malhotra et al., 1996 and
Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995). Close ties between re-
search laboratories and product-development activ-
ities are also critical to breakthrough innovations
(The Economist Technology Quarterly, 2001).
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-410-837-4976.
E-mail addresses: jsinghal@ubmail.ubalt.edu (J. Singhal),
ksinghal@ubmail.ubalt.edu (K. Singhal).
Customer needs generate the product’s functional
specification, which in turn generates the product
specification (Hill, 1991). In the predominant market-
ing research paradigm, the marketing function gen-
erates a spectrum of product concepts as a bundle of
well-defined attributes, with price included as an at-
tribute (Shocker and Srinivasan, 1979 and Srinivasan
et al., 1997). It specifies attributes in terms that are
meaningful to customers, and they are not neces-
sarily the same as the physical components of a
product.
There can be many possible technological designs
for a product expressed as bundles of attributes, and
there can be different manufacturing alternatives for
each design of a component. These designs have
different implications for aesthetics, usability, manu-
facturing quality, and so forth. Manufacturers often
use modular designs to organize complex products

0272-6963/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 7 2 - 6 9 6 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 0 7 - 4
290 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
Fig. 1. The innovation and supply chain diamond.
(Baldwin and Clark, 1997; Duray et al., 2000; Pine,
1993; Stoll, 1986 and Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995). A
modular design is composed of modules or assemblies
that are in turn made up of sets of parts.
In designing a new product, a firm may either de-
sign new components, unique to the product, or se-
lect from those offered in the catalogs of suppliers or
from those it already uses in other products. Ulrich and
Ellison (1999) call this the design–select decision. If
the firm decides to design a component, it may ei-
ther manufacture the component in its own facility or
ask a supplier to manufacture it. The firm, thus, has
following six possible options for the make–buy and
design–select decisions for a component.
1. Buy it off the shelf or select it from those already
in use in other products.
2. Design it in-house and manufacture it in-house.
3. Design it in-house and outsource its manufac-
ture.
4. Outsource the design and manufacture the compo-
nent in-house.
5. Outsource both design and manufacturing from a
single supplier.
6. Outsource the design from one supplier and the
manufacturing from another.
While the second option would require close coor-
dination between the design and manufacturing units
within the organization, the last four options would
require close coordination with suppliers.
The process of designing and developing a product
is a sequential narrowing of options, which starts with
generating a large possibility set and sequentially
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
winnows this set down to one or a few specific
products. At each stage of this process, the designers
add more concrete information in the organization’s
information set (Srinivasan et al., 1997). For an over-
view of the activities in the process see (Crawford,
1994; Hayes et al., 1988; Kotler, 1999; Pugh, 1991;
Ulrich and Eppinger, 1995; Urban and Hauser, 1993
and Wind, 1982).
Two major steps early in the process are generat-
ing and screening potentially desirable new product
ideas and identifying feasible product designs (Urban
and Hauser, 1993). One of the creative approaches, the
morphological method of generating and screening
new product ideas, consists of identifying possible al-
ternatives for each parameter and then evaluating some
or all of the resulting product combinations (Alford
and Mason, 1975; Crawford, 1994; Goldenberg
et al., 1999; Majaro, 1988; Singhal and Singhal,
2001; Tauber, 1972; Urban and Hauser, 1993 and
Wind, 1982).
The designers and developers of a product must
reconcile customer needs (including aesthetics), tech-
nological feasibility, and cost. Two major elements
in this reconciliation are technological (design and
manufacturing) and marketing compatibilities among
the parameters of a product. In Section 2, we de-
velop the concepts and a taxonomy of technologi-
cal and marketing compatibilities in the context of
the product-design function. We refer to subsets of
a product as components in the design and man-
ufacturing contexts, as attributes in the marketing
context, and as parameters where the discussion ap-
plies to both. The marketing literature uses the term
levels to denote alternatives for attributes. How-
ever, we use the term alternatives in both the de-
sign and manufacturing contexts and the marketing
context.
In Section 3, we define a compatibility matrix and
discuss a computer code for identifying product de-
signs that do not contain any incompatible pairs. We
outline a framework for developing and implement-
ing a technological-compatibility matrix in Section 4
and a framework for developing and implementing
a marketing-compatibility matrix in Section 5. In
Section 6, we describe a real-world application of the
compatibility matrix approach. In Section 7, we offer
some concluding remarks and outline possibilities for
future research.
291
2. The concept and a taxonomy of incompatibility
2.1. Technological incompatibility
Researchers in product design and manufactur-
ing have used the term incompatibility to denote
self-evident impossibilities and technological and
manufacturing limitations. We define four types of
technological incompatibilities: axiomatic, structural,
strategic, and transient.
Axiomatic incompatibility exists when an option for
one parameter and an option for another cannot be in-
cluded simultaneously because they are self-contradic-
tory or their simultaneous inclusion violates the basic
laws of nature. Zwicky (1962) describes an example
for jet engines in which an extrinsic chemically active
mass cannot apply if the medium is a vacuum. Zwicky
used the term internal contradictions to describe such
incompatibilities and noted that this incompatibility
would reduce the number of jet engines to be consid-
ered feasible.
Structural, strategic, and transient incompatibilities
are technological and manufacturing limitations re-
lated to an interface between components or modules.
Each component or module may have an interface with
one or more other components or modules (Swink,
1999, p. 694). An interface may be defined (Asimow,
1964, p. 27; Bonaccorsi and Lipparini, 1994; Chase
and Aquilano, 1985, p. 31; Nevins and Whitney, 1989
and Swink, 1999) as a system of
• mating surfaces,
• interacting product functions,
• mixed compounds,
• electrical input–output signals and logic,
• geometrical tolerances on physical characteristics,
• chemical tolerances (two dissimilar metals in con-
tact),
• interacting co-members that have matching operat-
ing characteristics, for example, members in series
with the outputs of one becoming the inputs of the
other,
• parts that respond similarly to conditions of stress,
or
• interacting software modules.
The interfacing components or modules must fit
together, connect, or communicate. Asimow (1964,
p. 27) regarded the consideration of compatibility
292 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
as a necessary step in designing a product. Swink
(1999, pp. 694–695) notes that “each product design
interface embodies a test of manufacturability, since
an effective interface relies on the compatibility of
design specifications among the components and on
the degree to which the actual components meet those
specifications.” Since those making the make–buy
and design–selection decisions may assign the design
and manufacture of just one pair of components to
four different organizations, managing interfaces can
become quite complex. As parties outside the firm
design or manufacture more of the new product com-
ponents, the number of inter-organizational interfaces
increases.
Bonaccorsi and Lipparini (1994, p. 138) describe a
real-world example of packing machines that are sys-
tems of interdependent interactive parts and modules
and each major module is itself a system made up
of interacting and interlocking parts. Since the func-
tionality of each interface depends on the careful de-
sign and manufacture of the interacting components or
modules, the coordination between design and manu-
facturing and the coordination with suppliers is crit-
ical to managing interfaces (Adler, 1995; Clark and
Fujimoto, 1991; Griffin, 1993; Meyer and Utterback,
1995; Stoll, 1986; Susman and Dean, 1992; Swink,
1998, 1999 and Youssef, 1994). Pisano (1992) and
Hendricks and Singhal (1997) note that coordination
can have a major impact on cost and development time.
In some cases, a pair of interacting components may
cause the product to function poorly or to break down
often and to require frequent replacement or repair.
Before the development of the disposable cartridge,
for example, most plain-paper copiers used a drum
and a surrounding imaging mechanism. These copiers
had frequent paper jams and needed regular servic-
ing. Approximately 97–98% of Canon’s copier service
problems were related to the drum and its surrounding
mechanism (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, p. 142).
The classification of structural, strategic, and tran-
sient incompatibilities is based on the state of the art
of design and manufacturing and the required R&D
efforts. Technological advances can make an incom-
patible pair compatible. The outcome of an R&D
effort to eliminate a structural incompatibility is un-
certain. The outcome of an R&D effort to eliminate
a strategic incompatibility is certain, but the time or
resources needed may not be available or exceed the
estimated benefits. A transient incompatibility can be
eliminated with acceptable level of R&D efforts, and
the outcome is certain.
After ascertaining that pair-wise compatibility ex-
ists among components, the designer must evaluate
higher-order incompatibilities involving three or more
components. A feasible design will specify one alter-
native for each component such that all components
are technologically compatible.
2.2. Marketing incompatibility
Marketing incompatibility refers to combining alter-
natives of various attributes that together form an un-
desirable product. For example, few customers would
buy a small family sedan with a 250 hp engine or blue
vanilla ice cream although both are technologically
feasible to manufacture. Similarly, while it is techno-
logically feasible to manufacture an aircraft that has a
small seating capacity and a long flying range, few air-
lines want to buy such airplanes. This is probably why
Boeing did not manufacture such planes until 1990
when it started manufacturing airplanes (737–700
series) that had a small seating capacity and a long fly-
ing range to satisfy demand from a small market seg-
ment, including Southwestern Airlines, that wanted
to buy them. The desirability of these combinations,
their marketing-compatibility, was based not only on
their perceived utility or the trade-off between per-
ceived utility and cost but also on the utility created
by the interaction of an alternative of one attribute and
an alternative of another (Singhal and Singhal, 2001).
3. The compatibility matrix
If a product has n parameters and M(i) represents
the number of alternatives for parameter i (i = 1,
2, . . . , n), then the total number of possible combina-
tions of the product resulting from these alternatives
are

n
N= M(i), M(i) ≥ 1 (1)
i=1
Identifying feasible products, which may be very
small in number, is a large combinatorial problem.
Singhal and Nair (1979) developed a compatibility
matrix to address a similar problem in the context
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302 293

Table 1
Compatibility matrix
j 1 2 3 4 5 6
i p q 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3
1 1 – – – – 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1
2 – – – – 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1
3 – – – – 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1
4 – – – – 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 1 1 1 1 1 – – 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 1 1 1 1 – – 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1
3 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 – – – 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0
2 1 1 1 1 1 1 – – – 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1
3 1 1 1 1 1 1 – – – 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0
4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 – – – 1 0 1 1 1
2 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 – – – 1 1 1 1 1
3 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 – – – 1 1 1 1 1
5 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 – – 1 1 1
2 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 – – 1 1 1
6 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 – – –
2 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 – – –
3 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 – – –

of project planning. Let parameter i have a set Ai given by

of alternatives numbered 1, 2, . . . , p, . . . , M(i). We  2 n 
n
can denote an alternative p ∈ Ai (i = 1, 2, . . . , n) i=1 M(i) − i=1 M(i)
2

by (i, p), ((i, p) ∈ Ai ) and construct a compatibil- Y1 =

2
ity matrix X such that each element in the matrix is 
defined as = M(i) M(j ), j <i
i,j

x[(i, p), (j, q)] = 1, In our hypothetical example, Y1 , calculated from

if (i, p) and (j, q) are compatible;
x[(i, p), (j, q)] = 0,
if (i, p) and (j, q) are not compatible (2)
where i, j = 1, 2, . . . , n (i = j ); p = 1, 2, . . . , M(i);
q = 1, 2, . . . , M(j); and M(i), M(j ) ≥ 1.
Since compatibility between the alternatives is mu-
tual, the compatibility matrix is symmetrical along the
main diagonal. In a hypothetical example of a prod-
uct consisting of six parameters (Table 1), two of the
parameters have two alternatives each; three of them
have three alternatives each; and one has four alter-
natives. The number of possible product designs with
these alternatives (N), without considering compati-
bility, will be 22 × 33 × 4 = 432. The number of
pairs (Y1 ) for which compatibility data are needed, is
Eq. (3), equals 119 pairs. Out of 119, only 15 pairs
are shown to be incompatible. The matrix is symmet-
rical along the main diagonal and has two entries for
each pair. Therefore, there are in all 238 elements in
the matrix.
A feasible or potentially desirable product design
contains one alternative for each parameter such that
each parameter-alternative is compatible with all other
parameter-alternatives. Singhal and Katz (1990) de-
veloped an efficient branch-and-fathom algorithm
to identify designs that do not contain any incom-
patible pairs. We implemented the algorithm in
the form of a computer code, compatibility matrix
and design (COMMAND), written in FORTRAN
(Singhal and Singhal, 2001). This code can identify
product designs that do not contain any incompatible
pairs.
294 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302

Table 2 4.1. Step 1: identifying components or modules

Feasible designs
1 (1, 2) (2, 1) (3, 1) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 1) Product specifications are based on functional speci-
2 (1, 2) (2, 2) (3, 1) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 1)
fications, which in turn are based on customers’ needs.
3 (1, 3) (2, 1) (3, 3) (4, 1) (5, 1) (6, 2)
4 (1, 4) (2, 1) (3, 1) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 1) However, product designers must exercise consider-
5 (1, 4) (2, 1) (3, 1) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 2) able judgment to identify required components and
6 (1, 4) (2, 1) (3, 3) (4, 1) (5, 1) (6, 2) optional components, because they may be able to ag-
7 (1, 4) (2, 1) (3, 3) (4, 3) (5, 1) (6, 2) gregate or disaggregate some of the components or
8 (1, 4) (2, 1) (3, 3) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 2)
modules. This aggregation and disaggregation may
9 (1, 4) (2, 2) (3, 1) (4, 3) (5, 2) (6, 1)
affect the cost and performance of the product, and
the decisions to make or buy and to design compo-
By applying the algorithm, using COMMAND, we nents or select from existing components. Howard and
find that in our hypothetical example, less than 13% Sheth (1969, pp. 206–208) state that the judgments
of the pairs being incompatible rule out the feasibil- of product managers, sales personnel, distributors, re-
ity or potential viability of 423, that is about 98% of tailers, and others knowledgeable about the products
the total product designs; only nine designs are fea- and their uses may suggest additional parameters or
sible or potentially desirable (Table 2). Singhal and confirm those suggested by others.
Singhal (1996) showed that, in general, the number of
feasible combinations decreases rapidly as the num- 4.2. Step 2: identifying alternatives for each
ber of incompatible pairs increases. This characteris- component
tic makes it manageable to evaluate product designs
for higher-order interactions among three or more pa- The team must list all possible alternatives for each
rameters and to screen the designs further by using component because many possible technological de-
economic and marketing analysis. signs exist for a product that is expressed as a bundle of
attributes and each component design may have mul-
tiple manufacturing alternatives. For both radical and
4. Developing and implementing a incremental innovations, the sources of information
technological-compatibility matrix for compiling such a list may include published liter-
ature; existing products, if any, marketed by the firm
A formal four-step framework can be used to de- and its competitors; the firm’s database; and expertise
velop and implement a technological-compatibility within the firm. The team can also use the creativ-
matrix. This framework is applicable to the entire ity techniques suggested by Adams (1979), Arnold
spectrum of product novelty, from radical to incre- (1962), Osborn (1953), Prince (1970) and Von Oech
mental innovation. The process of developing and (1990) to generate additional alternatives. At this
implementing the matrix should be carried out by a point, the team should not examine the pair-wise com-
cross-functional team consisting of experts from R&D patibility between alternatives of various components
and manufacturing and, where desirable, suppliers. because, with diverse sources of information, prema-
When a manufacturer relies on suppliers to design or ture judgments regarding compatibility could elimi-
manufacture new components, inter-organizational co- nate some feasible product designs. Urban and Hauser
ordination is essential to ensure compatibility among (1993, p. 157) stress the importance of not eliminating
interfacing components. Suppliers have major roles in good ideas at the screening stage.
ensuring that the components or modules designed or
manufactured by different organizations are compat- 4.3. Step 3: developing the compatibility data
ible. Early in product-development, the team should
include suppliers whose design or technology experts In radical innovations, expert judgment is the only
can provide insights important in crafting the new basis for evaluating the design compatibility of most
product (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Handfield et al., pairs of components. The team may have to rely on
1999 and Ragatz et al., 1997). the expertise of suppliers, of organization members
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
who are not on the team, and of outside experts. For
incremental innovation of existing products, the team
can determine the design compatibility of most parts
by examining the firm’s existing products or those of
its competitors. It would need expert judgment only
for components affected by innovation.
We interviewed design teams in eight manufactur-
ing companies to improve our understanding of roles
and characteristics of various types of incompatibili-
ties during the product-development process. Two of
the companies were defense contractors, four manu-
factured consumer goods, and the remaining two man-
ufactured industrial goods.
In three of the companies, team-members gen-
erally identified axiomatic incompatibilities at the
research stage or during transition from research to
development although they did not use the term;
axiomatic incompatibilities were not considered rel-
evant in the remaining five companies. Identifying
axiomatic incompatibilities is important in choosing
research projects and in making technological fore-
casts. Team-members carry the information about
axiomatic incompatibilities over to the design and
development stage.
Structural incompatibility is a major issue in mak-
ing technological forecasts and in designing products
that require the adoption or development of new
product and process technologies. In the later case,
a lack of knowledge about technological solutions to
design and manufacturing problems leads to uncer-
tainty (Monaert and Souder, 1990; Swink, 1999 and
Utterback, 1971). Swink notes that projects to de-
velop new products that are technologically uncertain
require a great deal of experimentation and analy-
sis and that, because of high risks, managers often
test product technologies thoroughly before investing
in process design. All eight teams we interviewed
had extensive experience in dealing with structural
incompatibilities. Structural incompatibilities must
be resolved early in the product-design process ei-
ther by making an incompatible pair compatible
or by dropping their simultaneous inclusion in the
design.
Structural incompatibility may become an impor-
tant issue even in projects concerning the performance
and reliability of an existing product. It may lead
to a radical innovation. For example, in addressing
its problem with copier jamming because the drum
295
and imaging mechanism were incompatible, Canon
invented the disposable cartridge. It fitted all three
major parts of the copier mechanism—the photosensi-
tive drum, toner, and the development assembly—into
a disposable cartridge. While its predecessor had an
open-ended operating life that required service after
frequent failures, the cartridge had a limited but known
life expectancy and made the copier maintenance free.
It lowered the cost and increased the reliability at the
same time (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, p. 143).
Seven of the eight design teams had experience
in dealing with strategic incompatibilities. Strate-
gic incompatibilities may arise at any stage of the
product-design process as the team identifies addi-
tional design alternatives. Teams may find that the
time or resources needed to eliminate a strategic in-
compatibility for a particular pair are not available
or they exceed the estimated benefits. However, ade-
quate resources to do so may be available for another
project at a later time. In some cases, a firm may go
ahead with the current project without eliminating
the incompatibility and invest in doing so for a future
project.
Transient incompatibilities can arise in almost all
product-development efforts and at almost all stages of
product-development. Two of the eight design teams
we interviewed noted that some of the incompatibili-
ties thought to be transient turned out to be strategic,
resulting in delays and cost overruns.
4.4. Step 4: identifying feasible designs
COMMAND identifies designs in which all com-
ponents have pair-wise compatibility. Design teams
can evaluate designs for compatibilities among three
or more components to identify feasible designs in
which components are compatible. Design teams then
subject the designs to further screening and economic
and marketing analysis (see a real-world example in
Section 6).
4.5. Modular architecture and design compatibility
Firms often use modular design to organize com-
plex products. In Section 2, we mentioned packing
machines that are systems of highly interdependent
interactive parts and modules and each major mod-
ule is itself a system made up of interacting and
296 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
interlocking parts. The compatibility matrix can be
used at various hierarchical levels of such products.
For example, consider a product that consists of k
modules. Each module consists of n1 , n2 , . . . , nk com-
ponents, and some of these components have alter-
nate designs. One can follow the following four-step
procedure.
1. At the first level, construct k different compatibility
matrices, one for each module.
2. Use COMMAND to identify designs for each mod-
ule such that the first-order compatibility require-
ments between paired components for that module
are satisfied.
3. Examine designs generated for each module
for higher-order compatibilities among its com-
ponents to identify feasible designs for each
module.
4. Use feasible alternate designs for each mod-
ule as inputs to a higher-level compatibility
matrix in which each module is treated as a
component.
4.6. Application beyond the screening stage
Firms can also use the technological-compatibility
matrix after generating and screening ideas (Singhal
and Singhal, 2001). They may have to reformulate
the matrix for two reasons. First, as they acquire
new information, they may need to add, delete, ag-
gregate, or disaggregate the components or modules.
In the process, they may create new components or
module interfaces and corresponding intra- and inter-
organizational interfaces. Second, as the designers
consider the details of component and their interac-
tions, they may produce additional alternatives. These
alternatives may differ from one another in such details
as geometry, tolerances, choice of materials, compli-
ance of assembly, and so forth (Nevins and Whitney,
1989). These details define new sets of interactions
among components. Although most of the incom-
patibilities in such interactions are transient, it is
important to identify them early. Knowledge of in-
compatibilities can help designers to choose the most
desirable alternative, minimizing the cost of making
an incompatible pair compatible and shortening the
cycle time. This knowledge is very important if dif-
ferent organizations are responsible for designing and
manufacturing interacting components.
5. Developing and implementing a
marketing-compatibility matrix
We use a similar four-step framework for devel-
oping and implementing a marketing-compatibility
matrix. It is also applicable to the entire spectrum
of product novelty, from radical to incremental inno-
vation. This framework integrates the compatibility
matrix with some other expert-based approaches to
generating and screening product ideas. A cross-func-
tional team consisting of experts from R&D, and mar-
keting, and where desirable, manufacturing should
develop and implement the marketing-compatibility
matrix.
5.1. Step 1: identifying attributes
The team must exercise judgment to identify both
required and optional attributes. For example, experts
must evaluate attributes to discover whether they affect
the utility of other attributes. If not, they are candi-
dates for exclusion. In some cases, the experts may not
have enough information to determine whether they
do or they do not. Product managers, sales personnel,
distributors, retailers, and others knowledgeable
about the products and their uses may suggest addi-
tional attributes or confirm those identified through
other means (Howard and Sheth, 1969, pp. 206–
208).
5.2. Step 2: identifying alternatives for
each attribute
The team can follow the procedure described for
Step 2 in Section 4 to identify alternatives for each
attribute.
5.3. Step 3: developing the compatibility data
For radical innovations, teams must rely on experts
to evaluate compatibility of most pairs. The team
may have to seek expertise from product managers,
sales personnel, distributors, retailers, and others
knowledgeable about the customers’ needs. For in-
cremental innovation of existing products, the team
can determine the marketing-compatibility of most
attributes by considering existing products produced
by the organization and its competitors. It would
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
need expert opinion only for attributes affected by the
innovation.
In three situations, experts may not be able to clas-
sify all pairs as compatible or incompatible. First, if
the experts find that some pairs are compatible for one
market segment but not for others, they can develop
separate compatibility matrices for each market seg-
ment. Second, attributes may be compatible to some
degree, neither completely compatible nor incompat-
ible. In such situations, experts can assign a number
between 0 and 1 (Singhal and Singhal, 2001). Third,
experts may disagree. In such situations too, they can
assign the pair a number between 0 and 1 depending
on the degree of agreement. For example, if 70% of
them consider a pair to be compatible and 30% con-
sider it to be incompatible, they would assign it a value
of 0.7.
5.4. Step 4: identifying potentially desirable
designs
When the team has classified all pairs as compat-
ible or incompatible, COMMAND identifies poten-
tially desirable products. It may suggest too many
or too few. If it lists too many for further screening
and analysis, the team can go back to Step 2 and
use additional criteria to screen out some attribute
alternatives. If it lists too few for further analysis,
the team can review Step 3 to see whether some
of the pairs designated as incompatible should be
considered as compatible. The team can use Steps
2–4 iteratively until it has an appropriate number of
ideas.
Singhal and Singhal (2001) suggest the following
procedure if some of the pairs have been assigned val-
ues between 0 and 1 in a matrix: experts could specify
a cut-off point, over which the pair would be assigned
a 1. Experts can adjust the cut-off point, beginning
with 1, until the algorithm yields the desired number
of designs. These designs would be a ranked set of
product ideas ranging from those with the highest de-
gree of compatibility to those with the lowest: designs
in which all pairs of attributes have values equal to 1,
designs in which some pairs have values, say, between
0.9 and 1, designs in which some pairs have values,
say, between 0.8 and 0.9, and so-forth.
The team then subjects these designs to further
screening and economic and marketing analysis.
297
5.5. Integration with consumer-based approaches
Although the compatibility matrix approach is es-
sentially expert-based, it can be integrated with some
consumer-based approaches. For example, the team
can run focus group sessions and include consumer
judgment in the compatibility matrix. Through these
sessions, consumers can contribute possible alter-
natives for each attribute to the list and eliminate
alternatives that are undesirable or inferior to other
alternatives for an attribute.
Similarly, teams can use focus group sessions to
determine compatibility relationships. In collecting
information from customers, a researcher may find
a pair of attribute alternatives rated desirable (com-
patible) by some customers and undesirable (incom-
patible) by others. If these differences arise because
the group includes individuals from different market
segments, then the team should organize focus groups
along market segments. If the members of the group
belong to the same market segment, the team can
classify pairs of attribute alternatives on the basis of
the percentage of customers rating a pair desirable.
For example, if 80% of the members of the focus
group find a pair to be desirable, it can be assigned a
value of 0.8 (Singhal and Singhal, 2001).
Depending on the objectives of the organization and
the characteristics of the product line, both expert- and
consumer-based approaches can be used sequentially
or simultaneously.
6. A real-world application
We describe an application of the compatibility ma-
trix approach to a line of 36 manufacturing machines
produced by a single business unit of a company. Each
machine consisted of modules and individual compo-
nents, many of which were interdependent. A num-
ber of modules and parts were common to multiple
machines. The company’s strong R&D department
and advanced CAD/CAM capabilities facilitated de-
sign changes and the evaluation of alternatives. The
company’s database was shared by all units in the or-
ganization, including accounting, design, manufactur-
ing, marketing, and purchasing. The combination of
CAD/CAM and the common database made it easy
to estimate the costs of components after a change in
298 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
design. CAD/CAM also made it possible to develop
virtual prototypes of components or pairs of interact-
ing components and approximate virtual prototypes of
whole products.
The company constantly sought customer input for
improving its products, focusing on components with
the highest failure rates. It used demand for spare parts
as a surrogate measure of failure rate. The company
pursued improvements in those components through
R&D and through focused continuous improvements
in manufacturing. It then started the next cycle of im-
provements by pursuing the next set of components
prone to failure. It had doubled the expected useful
life of most of the components during the preceding
9 years. The company had acquired a reputation for
producing high quality products.
Out of 36, 5 products accounted for 42% of revenue
of the product line, another 10 products accounted for
37% of revenue, and the remaining 21 products ac-
counted for 21% of revenue. The company referred to
these product sets as high-volume, medium-volume,
and low-volume products. The product line had
evolved over time. The products had many common
parameters. In spite of economies of scale from com-
mon parameters, many low-volume products were
either running losses or contributing only marginally
to operating profits.
The company wanted to explore new product ver-
sions that it could produce with existing parameters.
It had two goals: to increase market share and to re-
place a number of low-volume products with a smaller
number of new products such that each new prod-
uct would have the most desirable parameters of sev-
eral low-volume products. The company organized a
project team consisting of representatives from design,
manufacturing, and marketing.
6.1. Steps 1 and 2: identifying parameters and
alternatives for each parameter
As a first step, the team developed a compatibil-
ity matrix to identify new product versions that would
meet these goals. Some of the parameters were neces-
sary for all product combinations and had no bearing
on technical design or marketing-compatibility. Thus,
the team excluded them from the compatibility matrix.
The team also excluded such parameters as color and
finish. The matrix included 23 parameters; 17 were
required and 6 were optional. The required parame-
ters had two or more alternatives and the team had to
choose exactly one alternative for a design. For the
optional parameters, the team treated the parameter
non-inclusion as an additional alternative. The detail
is as follows.
• Twelve parameters had two alternatives each. A
product would require exactly one alternative for
nine of them and at most one alternative for the re-
maining three.
• Seven parameters had three alternatives each. A
product would require exactly one alternative for
six of them and at most one alternative for the re-
maining parameter.
• Three parameters had four alternatives each. A
product would require exactly one alternative for
two of them and at most one alternative for the
remaining parameter.
• One parameter had five alternatives and a product
would require exactly one of them.
• Thus, 9 of the 23 parameters in the compatibility
matrix had two alternatives each, another 9 had three
alternatives each, 3 had four alternatives each, and
the remaining 2 had five alternatives each. The total
number of possible combinations resulting from the
configuration was 16,124,313,600.
6.2. Steps 3 and 4: developing the compatibility
data and identifying designs
The team needed compatibility data for 2137 pairs
(Eq. (3)). The team treated the pairs of parameters
present in any of the 36 existing products as com-
patible and the rest as incompatible. By using the
code, COMMAND, the team identified 218 designs,
of which 182 were new designs and 36, existing.
Although all the parameters in the new designs were
included in existing machines, no new design had
identical parameters to an existing machine. Each
new design was unique, and although some were only
slightly different from one or more existing machines
in terms of composition, cost, or performance, others
were substantially different.
6.3. Economic and marketing analysis
Since all of the 182 new designs required only ex-
isting parameters and existing interfaces between pairs
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
of parameters, it was easy to produce their virtual pro-
totypes. The virtual prototypes revealed that 11 of the
designs had some fit (compatibility) problems related
to interactions of three or more components. The de-
sign and manufacturing departments easily resolved
the problems in 10 of them. The remaining design
had problems that would take considerable time and
money to solve, and the team dropped it from further
consideration. The team also calculated direct costs of
the remaining 181 designs.
Next, the team developed a measure for the degree
of novelty for each new design. It compared each new
design Da (a = 1, 2, . . . , 181) with each existing de-
sign, Pb (b = 1, 2, . . . , 36; high-volume designs in-
dexed from 1 to 5, medium-volume designs indexed
from 6 to 15, and low-volume designs indexed from
16 to 36) to determine Yab , the number of parameters
that were different in Da and Pb . The team calculated
the degree of novelty for a new design, Da , as
Ya = min(Yab ),
a = 1, 2, . . . , 181 and b = 1, 2, . . . , 36
The team ranked new designs based on the degree
of novelty.
To meet the goal of increasing the firm’s market-
ing share, the team asked the marketing department
to examine the designs on the basis of the following
criteria.
1. Degree of novelty.
2. Direct costs.
3. Customer needs as judged by the “experts” in the
marketing department.
These experts included staff in various branch of-
fices and a few selected experts from the company’s
distributors. They first dropped most of the designs
that ranked low in degree of novelty and that would
not, in their judgment, serve customer needs any bet-
ter than the existing machines. Then they examined
the remaining designs to see whether the improved
response to customer needs would justify the direct
cost of the machine. They selected 27 designs for fur-
ther evaluation, 22 of which came from the top 38 in
the ranked list. They included the design that had the
highest direct cost because they thought that its su-
perior features would be of great interest to high-end
customers. If they could persuade enough customers
299
to buy it, they thought the economy of scale would
reduce its cost.
To meet the company’s second goal to replace the
21 low-volume products with a smaller set of new de-
signs, with each new design replacing and possibly
improving on two or more existing designs, the team
first identified new designs in which not more than
three parameters differed from those in two or more
low-volume products. For each new design Da (a =
1, 2, . . . , 181), the team identified a set Sa (a = 1,
2, . . . , 181) of existing low-volume designs Pb such
that Yab ≤ 3 (b = 16, 17, . . . , 36). It deleted the sets
containing only one low-volume design. The team then
used the following three criteria to examine the re-
maining sets Sa that contained two or more existing
low-volume designs.
1. The extent to which the new design meets the needs
of the customers for the products it would replace.
2. The extent to which customers would perceive the
new design as an improvement allowing the firm
to market it as an improved model.
3. The direct cost.
In evaluating the designs based on the first two crite-
ria, the team consulted extensively with the corporate
marketing department and field managers. The team
recommended that the company retain 4 of the exist-
ing low-volume designs and replace the remaining 17
with 6 new designs.
The team’s recommendation would also eliminate
five components or modules, four of which it out-
sourced. Eliminating these components could save
on indirect costs and overhead. Out of 6, 2 new de-
signs recommended for meeting the second goal were
among the 27 recommended for meeting the first goal.
Thus, the company needed to build 31 prototypes.
After building the prototypes, the manufacturing de-
partment determined that one of them would require
redesign of some parts of the assembly line and that
the redesign would require additional investment and
disrupt production for several days.
The team divided 31 prototypes into seven subsets,
showing each subset to one of seven focus groups
of customers. Some individuals served on two or
more groups. The focus groups consisted primarily of
the company’s current customers, along with a few
customers of its competitors. The feedback from the
focus groups was a major factor in deciding which
300 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
prototypes to market or test market. The focus groups
also suggested improvements in the prototypes. The
suggestions were for cosmetic changes in the pro-
totypes, with two exceptions. First, the group that
evaluated the design with the highest direct cost used
that design as a benchmark to make suggestions that
would mean major R&D undertakings for products
designed in the future. Second, based on of the com-
ments of another group, the team built an additional
prototype for one of the 150 new designs that had
been eliminated from consideration and asked that
group to evaluate it.
The prototypes played a critical role in identifying
potential problems in manufacturing, making accu-
rate estimates of costs, and getting useful customer
feedback on the desirability of products and possible
improvements. Srinivasan et al. (1997) advocate de-
veloping a spectrum of customer-ready prototypes
to facilitate determination of customer response and
costs. They note that leading design firms prefer prod-
uct designs driven by prototypes rather than specifica-
tions. Schrage (1993) quotes Davis Kelley, president
of the successful design firm IDEO, as saying that the
number of prototypes and the quality of those proto-
types is directly proportional to the ultimate quality
of the product.
6.4. Implementation and results
The company marketed 11 new designs, 5 of them to
expand its market share and the remaining 6 to replace
17 existing low-volume products. These 11 designs
included the design with the highest direct cost, the
design that required redesign of part of the assembly
line, and the design for which a prototype was built
because of focus group’s comments. An unexpected
benefit of redesign of part of the assembly line was that
it reduced the average assembly time for all products
by 6.5%.
Two years after it introduced the new designs, the
company’s sales volume had increased by about 48%
and inventory turnover by 12%. The new designs also
cannibalized one of the medium-volume products,
which the company subsequently dropped from the
product line. The company later realized that one of
the designs introduced to replace the low-volume de-
signs was very similar to the cannibalized product.
Further, as a result of the increase in the sales volume
and the reduction in the product line from 36 to 29
products, the inventory turnover in the downstream
supply chain increased by 16%.
The focus group’s suggestions that required major
R&D undertaking led the company to initiate a project
to develop a product that would be superior to all ex-
isting products manufactured by the company and its
competitors. To get new insights, it is following two
avenues: it is reverse-engineering competitors’ prod-
ucts and it is examining possible component and mod-
ule interfaces that the team assumed to be incompatible
because they were not part of any existing products.
The application of the compatibility matrix and the
code COMMAND played a critical role in identifying
new designs that the company marketed successfully.
It is unlikely that the company could have identified
those designs using judgment or trial and error since
it had to choose from more than 16 billion possible
combinations of machines.
7. Concluding remarks and suggestions for
future research
We addressed two problems in the design and de-
velopment of a product that are directly tied into
effective management of the marketing/operations
interface. We first considered technological incompat-
ibility between pairs of alternatives for different com-
ponents to identify feasible product designs at various
stages of product-development, from screening to
the final design. We then considered experts’ judg-
ment on compatibility between pairs of alternatives
for different attributes to generate product ideas and
to perform a preliminary screening. Companies can
use this expert-based approach in conjunction with
other expert-based approaches or consumer-based
approaches to identify potentially desirable prod-
uct ideas. We have also developed a taxonomy of
technological-compatibility and integrated the litera-
ture on this topic. Our methodology includes explicit
simultaneous consideration of product, process, and
supply chain development, and it is applicable to the
entire spectrum of product novelty, from radical to
incremental innovation.
The simultaneous consideration of technologi-
cal and marketing compatibilities strengthens the
production/marketing interface, since technological
 J. Singhal, K. Singhal / Journal of Operations Management 20 (2002) 289–302
incompatibilities are related to design, manufactur-
ing, and supplier related issues. The compatibility
matrix is quite simple to implement and the inputs
required are easily obtainable. Managers can use the
matrix as a framework for integrating the roles of
manufacturing, marketing, R&D, and suppliers.
Since idea generation and screening are integral
parts of what Smith and Reinertsen (1991) termed
the fuzzy front end, a number of researchers have ad-
vocated a formal process at the front end to improve
decision making and product success because it brings
order to somewhat chaotic activity (Bacon et al.,
1994; Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1994; Khurana and
Rosenthal, 1998; McGrath, 1995 and Rosenthal, 1992).
We believe that the formal method we propose serves
these purposes.
Further research is needed in a number of direc-
tions. First, we are currently exploring the possibility
of using a compatibility matrix for technological
forecasting because incompatible pairs can become
compatible with technological advances. Second, in
determining marketing-compatibility, no clear bound-
ary exists between desirable and undesirable product
designs that vary simply in the degree to which pairs
of attributes are desirable, so the use of fuzzy set the-
ory is a possibility. For example, one could generate a
ranked set of designs based on the degree of compati-
bility of all pairs in a product design, instead of rank-
ing designed based on the pair with the lowest degree
of compatibility. Viswanathan and Childers (1999)
have applied fuzzy set theory to product-development.
They conceptualize product categories as fuzzy sets
in which products have degrees of memberships. Fi-
nally, one could explore the possibility of using the
compatibility matrix to produce a list of alternatives
to be tested in a choice simulator.
Acknowledgements
We thank Manoj Malhotra, Subhash Sharma, and
three anonymous referees for their insightful com-
ments on the earlier versions of this paper.
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