New-product development
New-product development is a crucial part of business. New products provide growth opportunities and a competitive advantage for a firm. Increasingly, there is a challenge to introduce new products more quickly without sacrificing quality. For example, the world’s automobile makers can now introduce a new car design in two years, whereas it used to take four years. Personal computers have a very short product life cycle, sometimes less than a year.New-product design greatly affects operations by specifying the products that will be made;it is a prerequisite for production to occur. At the same time, existing processes and products can constrain the technology available for new products. Thus, new products must be defined with not only the market in mind but also the production process that will be used to make a product. Product design follows from the development of a business strategy. The business strategy will include a value proposition that defines the target market, the differentiation of your product, and why the customer should buy from you. This is the starting point for designing a new product. These new-product designs should reflect the business strategy. See the Operations Leader box on the Ford Motor Company for linkages between strategy and new-product development.
- Compare the three strategies for new-product introduction.
- Describe the three phases of new-product development.
- Evaluate how concurrent engineering deals with misalignment.
- Describe the criteria that should be used for supplier selection.
- Evaluate an example of Quality Function Deployment.
- Explain the benefits of modular design.
