Product design takes a long time and a great deal of effort. It is important to target the
design programme to minimise time and costs and to plan for it to be successfully
completed within allocated resources. Time is very much of the essence, the minimum
compatible with optimal development.

In a product design plan, there are many activities to be first recognised and then
coordinated; some activities are worked in sequence, some in parallel. In particular,
multidisciplinary activities are focused in the same direction and coordinated in time. The
master plan coordinates the various people and their mini-projects in an overall time and
resource plan so that the product design can be controlled.

The plan begins with the product design specifications. These include a profile of the
product characteristics as defined by the consumer, the structure and composition, safety
factors, convenience and aesthetics, and also indicates the manufacturing, processing and
storage variables and their effects on the product qualities. Many of these product design
specifications start as general descriptions; product design and process development
focuses them into definite, quantitative descriptions.