Abstract
This chapter can be viewed as a complement to the previous one, since it focuses on the activities that make up product development, rather than on the organization of the actors that carry them out. This perspective fits well to the contemporary approach to management, which is strongly focused on processes.
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Notes
- 1.
Firms will be likely to specify their own specific product development process at some level of detail. Typically, this is a mandatory requirement for firms who wish to certify their quality systems around international norms, such as ISO 9001. A well-defined product development process can also help when engaging in product development jointly with customers and suppliers. Moreover, the process model can be used as a template for managing product development projects, and as a basis for defining workflow on information systems.
- 2.
For instance, in a notebook computer, mass storage capacity is a localized specification, since this specification at product level (i.e., the gigabytes of mass storage the firm wants the computer to have) can immediately be translated into the same amount at the level of the single subsystem that is responsible for it (i.e., the hard-disk or solid-state drive). Conversely, cost, mass, and battery time are general specifications, since they will be associated to a number of different components. Cost and mass will be given by the simple sum of the same specification for all components, while battery time will be a function of battery capacity and energy usage by other components.
- 3.
In the notebook computer example, should one provide more battery capacity, which will come at a greater cost and mass, or adopt chipsets that use less energy but are more expensive?
- 4.
For instance, at the beginning of the development process for a consumer electronics product, the team may decide to adopt a completely new material for the casing of the device. The cost incurred for taking this decision can be very low (i.e., some research on materials properties, a few calls to suppliers and a few minutes of debate during a meeting). However, once taken, this decision may determine a substantial portion of the subsequent costs since the casing built with this new material will require a given amount of engineering work during detailed design, followed by the search for new suppliers, investments in tools and dies, and so on.
- 5.
These teams are often named with the set of responsibilities that is assigned to them. For instance, a Design and Build Team will be tasked with making sure that a subsystem is designed to specifications and its manufacturability is ensured.
- 6.
For instance, a firm must be able to estimate the impact of “delaying product launch by 2 months in order to incorporate a new component that might allow a 2.30 dollar reduction in unit cost”, or “allowing a 100,000 € increase to the development budget in order to hire a consulting firm that might help develop a better product, with an expected sales increase of 5–10 %”.
- 7.
A number of firms, among which HP (House and Prince 1991), have adopted performance indicators similar to BEAR. This is by no means an easy policy to enforce, since BEAR measures the performance of a project not by looking at its execution, but at its future consequences. This runs contrary to the usual training received by project managers, i.e. to deliver given results on time and on budget, since BEAR takes the completely different stance of looking at how quickly the project will recoup the investment made, whatever time and budget has been used. From a project manager’s perspective it may seem puzzling that development performance may be calculated by looking at the sales phase. After all, one might argue that what happens during the sales phase depends on functions and managers in charge of sales, production, field service, etc. In reality, this is the very reason why BEAR is a powerful indicator, since it forces managers in charge of development projects to internalize the elaboration of all the processes and assets that will be needed later on and ensure they will work correctly.
- 8.
This phenomenon is common to many activities that have “gone digital”. Whether it is writing text with word processing software, or shooting photographs with digital cameras, users exhibit the tendency to work by trial and error and to engage in multiple iterations that would not have been possible with traditional means, such as fountain pens and film-based cameras.
- 9.
Some authors (Blank and Dorf 2012) talk about “customer development” running in parallel to “product development”.
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Cantamessa, M., Montagna, F. (2016). The Product Development Process. In: Management of Innovation and Product Development. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6723-5_11
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