Week 3

It can often be difficult to come up with new ideas when you're trying to develop or improve a product or service. This is where creative brainstorming techniques like SCAMPER can help. This tool helps you generate ideas for new products and services by encouraging you to think about how you could improve existing ones.

What is SCAMPER?

SCAMPER helps to generate ideas for new products by encouraging you to think about how you could improve existing ones, also to narrow down ideas from a broad topic of what to work on. 

SCAMPER is a acronym that stands for:

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Modify
• Put to another use
• Eliminate
• Reverse

This is what we came up using SCAMPER:

	Idea #1	Idea #2
Substitute	Change the type of wrapper	Handwash instead of machine wash Handwash can have extra care compared to machine wash
Combine	Use edible wrapper with chocolate	Combine iron and washing machine together
Adapt	Changing the ingredients, increasing percentage of cocoa (i.e dark chocolate melting point higher than milk chocolate)	Use fabric softener
Modify	Reducing the size of chocolate bars to bite-sized ones	Use materials that produces less creases
Put to other use	Can be used for candy Use the melted chocolate for something else	Suitable for child or those that cannot iron.
Eliminate
Reverse	Dispense melted chocolate and refreeze it at home	Turn creases into a fashionable design

Ideas can be further eliminated by using the feasibility analysis, a feasibility analysis is used to determine the viability of an idea, such as ensuring a project is feasible and economically justifiable.

There are four types of feasibility study— separate areas that a feasibility study examines, described below.

1. Budget

This assessment involves a cost analysis of the project, helping organizations determine the viability, cost, and benefits associated with a project before financial resources are allocated.

2. Project Timeline

This assessment is the most important for project success; after all, a project will fail if not completed on time. It estimates whether the project can be completed within the stipulated timeframe.

3. Technical Feasibility

This assessment focuses on the technical resources available to the organization. It also involves the evaluation of the hardware, software, and other technical requirements of the proposed system.

4. Operational Feasibility

This assessment involves undertaking a study to analyze and determine whether the organization’s needs can be met by completing the project. 

Feasibility Analysis

Idea : Making a wrapper that will not make chocolate melt	YES	NO
Budget - Less than S$2000?		✅
Project Timeline - Can be completed within one semester?	✅
Technical Feasibility - Evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
Is the project feasible within the limits of current technology?	✅
Are the required utilities available?	✅
Does the lab have necessary testing and fabrication equipment?	✅
Does it need any computer software and hardware?		✅
Do we possess the necessary technical expertise and skills?	✅
Does the lab have sufficient space to support the project?	✅
Operational Feasibility
Does the project team have sufficient manpower to carry out the project?	✅
Is it legal to operate the project?	✅
Is it safe to operate the project?	✅

Idea : A machine that helps to iron automatically after washing	YES	NO
Budget - Less than S$2000?		✅
Project Timeline - Can be completed within one semester?		✅
Technical Feasibility - Evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
Is the project feasible within the limits of current technology?	✅
Are the required utilities available?	✅
Does the lab have necessary testing and fabrication equipment?		✅
Does it need any computer software and hardware?	✅
Do we possess the necessary technical expertise and skills?	✅
Does the lab have sufficient space to support the project?	✅
Operational Feasibility
Does the project team have sufficient manpower to carry out the project?	✅
Is it legal to operate the project?	✅
Is it safe to operate the project?	✅

COWS DECISION MATRIX

1. Cost
2. Availability of parts 
3. Ease of maintenance
4. Simplicity of operation
5. Environmentally friendliness

Cost is a crucial criterion in all products. If the product is too expensive, people may not want to buy it. Most likely they would find other alternatives that offer the same function at lower price. Hence the weightage for cost would be 30% (highest).

Availability of parts would be next. Building the prototype would require many different parts to play with. Optimising the product with readily available parts to reduce manufacturing cost. Hence this plays a part in cost as well, giving it a weightage of 15.

Ease of maintenance would be crucial as the product that we would be dealing with would need high maintenance. Being able to easily clean and wash the product would reduce hassle and work done by customers. Hence, the weightage would be at a higher range of 20%.

Simplicity of operation would also be one of the more important criteria. Being able to operate the product with minimal effort would be the most ideal as less time would be spent on it and it attracts customers to buy it due to its simple instructions. Hence, the weightage would also be at a higher range of 20%.

Environmentally friendliness would be crucial in the production and after use of the product. Nowadays many products are being carefully thought before manufactured depending on the carbon footprint each product leaves. Hence it would be important that the product have a criteria on that, giving it a weightage of 20%.

Criteria	Weightages (%)	Options
		A machine that helps to iron automatically after washing		Making a wrapper that will not make chocolate melt
		Raw Score	Weighted Score	Raw Score	Weighted Score
Cost	25	1	25	3	75
Availability of parts	15	1	25	3	45
Ease of maintenance	20	1	20	3	60
Simplicity of operation	20	1	20	3	60
Environmentally friendliness	20	3	60	1	20
Score	100		150		260

From the decision matrix, we  found that finding a suitable wrapper that reduces melting of candy would be the better idea of the two, also with the highest score.