Product Development & Procurement

Design-to-Value

Boost margins through better products

Building great products is hard. Customer preferences, supply chain costs, and technical constraints are often conflicting—and optimizing one, can come at the cost of another element.

Design-to-Value (DtV) takes an analytical approach to trade off decisions by focusing on what customers really want and taking out unnecessary complexity in your product portfolio. We help you drive lasting and accelerated product-driven growth.

Customer insights
Uncover valuable customer insights using our proprietary digital and analytics tools. Build a better understanding of your customers and create opportunities for customization and differentiation.
Design insights
Combine design-thinking and technical insights to drive new product development. By working with our 12 global design-to-value labs, you can convert ideas into products using leading capabilities such as gen AI, rapid prototyping, and generative design.
Sustainability insights
Develop sustainable products and services in a profitable manner leveraging our digital solutions and generate distinctive cost and carbon insights to accelerate decarbonization efforts within your product portfolio.
Cost insights
Examine your product’s cost structure to optimize its design and capture crucial cost savings. Utilizing our robust cost database and agile cost modeling tools will help you increase cost transparency.

Featured insights

An abstract video visualization of a data flow with a cascade of glowing numbers embodying the incessant flow of information in a virtual realm.
Article

The AI revolution will be ‘virtualized’

-
A tsunami of digital innovation is hitting product development. Will your organization surf that wave or be overwhelmed by it?
Open refrigerator in a supermarket showcase brandless packagings and bottles of juice, coffee, energy drinks, water, smoothies, salad, puree, and diverse food items.
Podcast
How product design can yield ‘triple wins’: Growth, margin, and sustainability
-
Some consumer companies have simultaneously increased sales, cut costs, and reduced carbon emissions. Their secret? Paying closer...
Woman holding a cup of vanilla ice cream in supermarket
Article
Skinny design: Smaller is better
-
Designing packaging and products with supply chain and in-stock issues in mind can increase revenues and profits, all while meaningfully...
Five-star growth: Using online ratings to design better products
Article
Five-star growth: Using online ratings to design better products
-
New research shows that small changes in star ratings can drive explosive growth for products—on the order of 30 to 200...

Tools & Capabilities

Gen AI Co-pilot
Design cost-optimized products with the help of a gen AI powered co-pilot. The gen AI co-pilot utilizes proprietary databases along with technical features such as CAD drawing analysis to generate practical and impactful insights within seconds. Accelerate the design process while balancing cost and value.
Product Digital Twin
Build a virtual representation of a product over its lifecycle using real-time data to analyze, simulate, and optimize its performance and value. Product Digital Twin enables you to optimize costs, accelerate time to market, and design better products that exceed customer needs.
Resource Cleansheet
Resource Cleansheet helps you develop more sustainable products and services by balancing environmental goals with cost pressures. Map product costs and CO2 footprint to increase transparency, provide a fact base for reliable decision making, and reduce emissions and costs along each step of the value chain.
PackIQ
Improve the packaging process with data-driven insights and optimization ideas using leading benchmarking capabilities. Leverage a global database of thousands of SKUs across various packaging categories to identify opportunities quickly and automatically for improvements in cost, value, and sustainability.

Meet Our People

Kimberly Borden
Senior PartnerChicago
Serves clients in the Aerospace & Defense and Automotive & Assembly Practices, focusing on strategy, operations, and transformational...
Dave Fedewa
PartnerAtlanta
Serves clients in consumer and retail and leads consumer durables and our growth by design work
Wolfgang Günthner
PartnerBerlin
Leads McKinsey’s design-to-value labs and the center for cost engineering globally, serving clients in advanced industries, product...
Dr. Ruth Heuss
Senior PartnerBerlin
Co-leads McKinsey’s Operations Practice globally, and serves companies in the automotive and machinery industries on future mobility,...
Mike Parkins
Senior PartnerDenver
Drives the firm’s product-development and procurement work, with a focus on complex industrial products
André Rocha
PartnerMadrid
Serves global companies across a wide range of industries such as medical devices, high tech, advanced electronics, and machinery...

Connect with our Operations Practice

Contact us