New Product Development Process Stage 3

Concept Development and Testing

Develop the marketing and engineering details
Who is the target market and who is the decision maker in the purchasing process?
What product features must the product incorporate?
What benefits will the product provide?
How will consumers react to the product?
How will the product be produced most cost effectively?
Prove feasibility through virtual computer aided rendering, and rapid prototyping
What will it cost to produce it?
Testing the Concept by asking a sample of prospective customers what they think of the idea. Usually via Choice Modeling

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_product_development

My opinion: I think concept development should be done with consumers early in the development process to guide direction and provide cost savings later in the process. There are many available tools which allow us to do simple, cost-effective testing at any point in the process.