Product Development

Product Development

Introduction

Technology is a key resource of profound importance for corporate profitability and growth. It also has enormous significance for the well-being of national economies as well as international competitiveness. Effective management of technology links engineering, science, and management disciplines to address the issues involved in the planning, development, and implementation of technological capabilities to shape and accomplish the strategic and operational objectives of an organization.

The use of technology is an important factor in the process of a company's product development. Product development is the set of activities beginning with the perception of a market opportunity and ending in the production, sale and delivery of a product. It is often used in engineered, discrete, physical products such as television sets and automobiles. Product development is divided into four stages:

1. Initiation Stage

The goal of the initiation stage is to identify a new business opportunity. Projects go through two phases in this stage: knowledge prebuild, and concept development. At the knowledge prebuild phase, planning groups comprised of marketing and design representatives match market opportunities and available technology. The product manager and the product designer analyze the market potential of the concept and develop draft specifications and plans for project management and investment. Senior corporate and divisional management evaluate the new business opportunity as a cost effective and innovative technological solution that could be developed with sustainable margins on cost, revenues, and technology.

2. Definition Stage

Review of the product concept marks the end of the next major stage in the new product development cycle. During this stage, the product concept is defined, and marketing sets the context within which integration of design and manufacturing occurred. Commercial specification, outlining the functional and aesthetic features of the product, its price range, and its market launch program, including the required launch date are developed. These items act as commercial guideposts around which design and manufacturing engineering designed the product form, fit, and functions.

3. Development Stage

During this stage, the project team develops detailed specifications of what the product is and how it performs, what it looks like, how it is manufactured, and how it is used.

4. Verification Stage

The complete product is assembled by manufacturing, and tested under normal and worst-case conditions in typical customer application environments. The aim is to discover defects early and establish margins for failure modes, so that adjustments could be made as quickly as possible, before the sales and production ramp started. When the product meets the commercial, manufacturability, quality, and performance criteria of the project team, the review panel assesses the readiness to step-up production and ship to customers in volume.