In the first chapter of this in-depth work, Otto (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Wood (U. of Texas at Austin) discuss the foundation material of product design, including their philosophy for learning and implementing product design methods. Each subsequent chapter addresses both basic and advanced techniques for particular phases of product development. Topics include process tools, technical and business concerns, understanding customer needs, establishing product function, product teardown and experimentation, benchmarking and establishing engineering specifications, product portfolios and architecture, generating concepts, concept selection and embodiment, modeling of product metrics, design for manufacture and assembly and for the environment, analytical and numerical model solutions, physical prototypes, and physical models and experimentation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)