We begin with the first step in our concept framework, developing the concepts. Recalling the ­stakeholder and goal analysis for the Hybrid Car, we began with changing the location of the ­people and their possessions as the solution-neutral operand and process, modified by the attributes of “inexpensively” and “environmentally.”

Our system problem statement has already begun to define the concept, in that we specialized the process to driving with the attributes of fuel efficiency and good handling:

Provide our customers a product:

• To transport them and their possessions inexpensively and in an environmentally sound manner

• By allowing them to drive themselves, their passengers, and light cargo fuel-­efficiently and with good handling characteristics

• Using a hybrid gas/electric car

The process of defining goals caused us to expand the list of specific processes. We used a ­structured approach to applying creativity by enumerating the needs of beneficial stakeholders (Sections 11.2 and 11.3), and then we chose which needs to encode as descriptive goals of the Hybrid Car.

Thus far, our concept of form is simply a hybrid, but we have not elaborated on the form or the function–form mapping of the concept. The term “hybrid” is a short form, where both the instrument to which the adjective “hybrid” refers is suppressed (Hybrid Car), and the two poles of the spectrum are left off. The reader probably assumed that we meant a hybrid gas/electric vehicle, but as the case study at the end of this chapter shows, there was a time when hybrid steam/gas vehicles was the prevalent meaning.

Given the prior development of the system problem statement in Chapter 11, the specialization we began in defining the goals, and the prior development of the transportation ­processes and instruments from Chapter 7, we will proceed directly to the second step: Expand the Concepts. Note that at this stage, we are carrying only one concept (hybrid gas/electric car), but we could already be carrying several concepts to expand.