Product analysis involves examining product features, costs, availability, quality, appearance and other aspects. Product analysis is conducted by potential buyers, by product managers attempting to understand competitors and by third party reviewers. Product analysis can also be used as part of product design to convert a high-level product description into project deliverables and requirements. It involves all facts of the product, its purpose, its operation, and its characteristics.

Techniques

Related techniques include product breakdown, systems analysis, systems engineering, value engineering, value analysis and functional analysis. * Product breakdown: Recursively divide the product into components and subcomponents. * Systems engineering: Ensure that the product satisfies customer needs, cost requirements, and quality demands. * Value engineering: Consider alternative designs and construction techniques to reduce cost/increase profit. * Value analysis: Assess the cost/quality ratio to ensure that the product is cost effective. * Function analysis: Ensure that the product has features appropriate to customer requirements.

Technology analysis

Technological analysis is sometimes applied in decision-making often related to investments, policy-decisions and public spending. They can be done by a variety of organization-types such as for-profit companies, non-profit

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

s, public platforms and government agencies and evaluate established, emerging and potential future technologies on a variety of measures and metrics – all of which are related to ideals and goals such as minimal global greenhouse gas emissions – such as life-cycle-

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

openness Openness is an overarching concept that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency and collaboration. That is, openness refers to "accessibility of knowledge, technology and other resources; the transparency of action; the permeability of or ...

performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

, control, financial costs, resource costs, health impacts and more. Results are sometimes published as public reports or as

scientific Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

peer-reviewed studies. Based on such reports

standardization Standardization (American English) or standardisation (British English) is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organiza ...

can enable interventions or efforts which balance competition and cooperation and improve sustainability, reduce waste and redundancy, or accelerate innovation. They can also be used for the creation of standardized system designs that integrate a variety of technologies as their components. Other applications include

risk assessment Risk assessment is a process for identifying hazards, potential (future) events which may negatively impact on individuals, assets, and/or the environment because of those hazards, their likelihood and consequences, and actions which can mitigate ...

and research of defense applications. They can also be used or created for determining the hypothetical or existing

optimal Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criteria, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfiel ...

solution/s and to identify challenges, innovation directions and applications. Technological analysis can encompass or overlap with analysis of infrastructures and non-technological products. Standard-setting organizations can "spearhead convergence around standards". A study found that, in many cases, greater variety of standards can lead to higher innovativeness only in administration. Tools of technology analysis include analytical frameworks that describe the individual technological artefacts, chart technological limits, and determine the socio-technical preference profile. Governments can coordinate or resolve conflicting interests in standardisation. Moreover, potentials-assessment studies, including potential analyses, can investigate potentials, trade-offs, requirements and complications of existing, hypothetical and novel variants of technologies and inform the development of

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

-criteria and -parameters and deployment-strategies.

References

{{Reflist Systems engineering Product management Analysis

Techniques

Technology analysis

See also

References