Design a product that prevents flat tires in cars.

Comprehend: 

C → Comprehend Situation -- What? Who? Why? How?

Current car tires have to be repaired or replaced as soon as they have a flat. Typically this involves working with provided tooling in the car or calling a 3rd party service like AAA. certain types of flats can’t be repaired and need to be replaced. It would be great if a solution is able to take that into consideration. 

Reasons for Flat: 

1. Nails on roads

2. Accidentally running over a spike strip

3. Bad valve stem leading to slow leaks

4. General slow leaks in tire due to fatigue
    

This results in following issues:

1. Lost Time

2. Additional Efforts to replace a flat

3. Cost to fix/replace the flat tire

4. Cost for 3rd parties (AAA), etc.

I → Identify Customer

Typical personas for Tires: 

1. Personal (Car/Truck/Bike/Other) vehicle or Small Business owners

Characteristics of Personal vehicle owners: 

1. Owns a relatively small number of vehicles.

2. Uses vehicle mainly for:

   1. Commute to/from home

   2. Day-to-day activities (Groceries, schools, etc.)

   3. Recreation

   4. Small business activities (Going to customer sites, deliveries, etc.)

3. Doesn’t spend money on car management software or service use any fleet management type software

4. Considers flat tire an inevitable but relatively low probability item and doesn’t spend efforts on mitigation

   1. May or may not sign up for some sort of flat repair/replacement plan (AAA).

2. Commercial fleets and large corps (like PGE)

Characteristics of Commercial Fleet Owners

1. Owns a large number of vehicles (Rental car companies, Trucking Companies (Semis, etc.),  

2. Heavy use of vehicles mainly for:

   1. Carrying freight across long distances.

   2. Carrying out work in the field (fixing issues, customer visits, etc.)

      1. Eg: PGE, Comcase, etc.)

3. Vehicles could be owned by the company directly or through a franchise model. 

4. Considers flat tire a high priority item as it causes business disruption and loss of revenue. 

   1. Invests in mitigation methods like univeral AAA coverage some other network based model. 

   2. Educates their employees/franchisees on effective ways to deal wit flat tires. 

5. Uses fleet management software to ensure quick identification and alerting in cases of flat so spare vehicle can be dispatched in case business SLAs are going to be missed. 

Other possible personas not considered here:

1. Casual bikers (non powered)

2. Oversized vehicles (Aeroplanes, etc.)

While we can create a solution for all personas, in interest of time, we will concentrate on the Personal and Small Business user. 

R → Report customer needs (I want ___ so that ___)

For Personal or Small Business owner the customer needs would be as follows:

1. Prevention of Flat Tire:

   1. I want a tire that can be used even if it is flat, so I don’t get stranded on the road.

   2. I want my car to tell me about a slow leak so I can fix it before it becomes an issue. 

   3. I want my tire to re-inflate in case of a flat (when not caused by a nail) so I can continue driving. 

   4. I wish my car could automatically direct me to closest tirestore in case of a flat so I don’t have to search for it.

   5. I want my tire to last long even if it is run with flat (and doesn’t need to be replaced sooner).

   6. I want my tire to prevent nails from going into the sidewall so I don’t have to replace it just for a flat. 

   7. I want to know if the valve stem is broken or leaking so I can fix it before it becomes an issue. 

   8. Moonshot (10x) Idea: 

      1. I want a tire made of solid (non air) materials so the whole issue with flats won’t exist.

2. Mitigation after flat:

   1. I want the tire fixing to be quick and painless if it does happen. 

   2. I want my tire/car to tell me when there is a flat so I can take proper precautions before stopping.

C → Cut through the prioritization

Prioritizing the requirements based on the RICE model:

L → List Solutions:

1. Build tires that will run even if there is a flat and auto fix the tire as they are being used. 

   1. They should also be able to withstand/prevent sidewall nails

   2. Also prevents leaks from valve stems

   3. Can be designed based on re-inflation tech where even if a tire has a nail, it will just re-inflate and keep the car going.

   4. Also will need to be able to expel the nail and patch the flat as and when it happens.

2. Build tires from non-air materials

   1. Latest carbon fiber or other strong but very light materials can be used. 

3. Build a data monitoring system and insert into the tire so we can monitor when tire is going to lose air or have a flat (other than car running over a nail)

1. Build tires that will run even if there is a flat and auto fix the tire as they are being used. 

Advantages:

1. This is something that can be rather easily deployed in the market and will not need additional infrastructure to be in place. 

2. Tires themselves will take care of everything. No need to add anything to the car. 

   1. Possibly can add an API or alert in tpms system that will inform user about this change. 

   2. Also can propose an app hook to tell users in their existing car apps that a tire has a flat but is being managed. 

Disadvantages:

1. Will require new tech to be developed which could mean it will be more expensive. 

2. Will have a long go-to-market timeline since this will have to go through R&D and deployment on new cars.

2. Build tires from non-air materials

Advantages:

1. This would be a gamechanger as there will be no other competitor that will have this tech. 

2. The tires will work without air so low on maintenance. 

Dis-advantages:

1. The tire will need to be designed from scratch and will require pretty big R&D cycle. 

2. Tires might end up having maintenance costs associated with the new materials. 

3. There will be unknowns in terms of managing the new materials that are yet to be defined. 

3. Build a data monitoring system:

Advantages:

1. This will be a quick solution to the problem. 

2. It will give a stop gap measure to customers till the final versions are available that resolve this issue completely. 

Dis-Advantages:

1. It doesn’t fully resolve this requirement. 

2. Can be used as a stop gap at best. 

S → Summarize the final response:

Based on the analysis above, it looks like the best way would be to go with Option 1 which is to build tires that can re-inflate tires and prevent any flats from happening. All the fixes will be done as the tire is being used and won’t need any downtime. 

As a 5 year goal Option 2 can be used.