World-class New Product Development

Book excerpt: Success in global markets means faster time to market, sharper response to customer needs, and better value. To be a world-class competitor, you must do this while expending fewer product development resources per project and while increasing the efficiency with which those resources are deployed. In this book, two international experts show you how the "champions" manage robust product development operations. Recounting the key findings of five years of researching, benchmarking, and working with scores of the world's most competitive companies, they crystallize the workings of a new system of managing fast product development in the '90s. The companies benchmarked were chosen because of their fast cycle times, rapid market share gains, high percentage of sales from products introduced within the last three years, and favorable industry image. You will closely explore the practices by which such winners as NEC, Hewlett-Packard, Toyota, and Boeing have achieved success - and you will learn how to apply their methods, tools, and techniques to your own improvement efforts. Significantly, rather than offering a single process for success, World-Class New Product Development gives you a cross-section of proven, repeatable methodologies. The authors synthesize their findings into 12 concepts that can revolutionize the way you conceive and develop products.