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Measuring Product Development to Improve the Quality of the Process The Practice of Quality Management pp 117-145 | Cite as Abbie Griffin (1) 1. University of Chicago, Chicago, USA Chapter 1 Citations 121 Downloads
Abstract As global competitive pressure increases and product life cycles compress, many companies are trying to shorten their product development cycles and increase the success “hit rate” of those products they commercialize. These characteristics are two aspects of the quality of a firm’s product development process. In order to improve these quality characteristics, firms are implementing a wide variety of different techniques, management processes, and development strategies. Anecdotal tales of the results of some efforts herald great success stories. One seldom hears about the failures. Unfortunately, some companies are changing the way they develop new products without first understanding and quantitatively characterizing their current product development process. They are making process changes without any a priori basis for determining whether the change will have helped or hindered them. There is a need for cycle time and success rate performance baselines against which companies compare results from the new processes. This chapter presents product development cycle time and success performance baselines across product types and industries for 198 completed projects. It also starts to demonstrate how different product development characteristics impact overall time to market, and what factors seem to correlate in general with product success.
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Endnotes 1.
Associate Professor of Marketing and Production, Graduate School of Business, 1101 East 58th Street, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/scholar? q=Associate%20Professor%20of%20Marketing%20and%20Production%2C%20Graduate%20School%20of%20Business%2C%201101%20 East%2058th%20Street%2C%20University%20of%20Chicago%2C%20Chicago%2C%20IL%2060637.)
2.
Functions are the basic physical performance aspects of the product, and thus are a subset of a product’s benefits. Customers buy a bundle of benefits, which consist of the performance aspects as well as other benefits, such as ease of purchase and ease of financing. As features deliver subsets of functions, functions help deliver a subset of overall benefits. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/scholar? q=Functions%20are%20the%20basic%20physical%20performance%20aspects%20of%20the%20product%2C%20and%20thus%20are%20a %20subset%20of%20a%20product%E2%80%99s%20benefits.%20Customers%20buy%20a%20bundle%20of%20benefits%2C%20which% 20consist%20of%20the%20performance%20aspects%20as%20well%20as%20other%20benefits%2C%20such%20as%20ease%20of%20pur chase%20and%20ease%20of%20financing.%20As%20features%20deliver%20subsets%20of%20functions%2C%20functions%20help%20d eliver%20a%20subset%20of%20overall%20benefits.)
3.
Only 62%% (122) of the 198 completed projects have the length of time for phase 0 recorded. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/scholar? q=Only%2062%25%25%20%28122%29%20of%20the%20198%20completed%20projects%20have%20the%20length%20of%20time%20f or%20phase%200%20recorded.)
4.
Not every firms’ cycle time relationships exhibit this start-up time. There is no start-up time for projects in the chemical firms. According to managers in these companies, no tooling is necessary for these products. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/scholar? q=Not%20every%20firms%E2%80%99%20cycle%20time%20relationships%20exhibit%20this%20startup%20time.%20There%20is%20no%20startup%20time%20for%20projects%20in%20the%20chemical%20firms.%20According%20to%20managers%20in%20these%20companies%2 C%20no%20tooling%20is%20necessary%20for%20these%20products.)
About this chapter Cite this chapter as: Griffin A. (1997) Measuring Product Development to Improve the Quality of the Process. In: Lederer P.J., Karmarkar U.S. (eds) The Practice of Quality Management. Springer, Boston, MA DOI (Digital Object Identifier) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6283-2_5 Publisher Name Springer, Boston, MA Print ISBN 978-1-4613-7884-6 Online ISBN 978-1-4615-6283-2 eBook Packages Springer Book Archive About this book Reprints and Permissions