8.3 THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

This book has attempted to demonstrate the Product Development Process as the overall technology for product development. It includes and integrates activities, outcomes and decisions.

There are a variety of techniques which may be used in the activities, but these have only been mentioned in this small book and further details can be found in the textbooks listed at the end of this chapter.

The Product Development Process in this book is divided into four stages: product strategy development, product design and process development, product commercialisation, product launch and evaluation. The four stages give a direction and a focus to the product development project, setting a clear direction for the product strategy, creating the product in the product design, building this product into an operational system in product commercialisation and bringing it to fulfilment in the product launch.

It also recognises that the Product Development Process is one of decision-making, and the need to make decisions is part of the product development project. How and on what basis these decisions are made identifies the outcomes needed and therefore the selection of activities in the process.

Decisions are made sometimes without full knowledge or only with the tacit knowledge in peoples’ heads and are not necessarily based on explicit activities, but they must be recognised in the product development project.

The selection of the knowledge needed for decision-making is related to the risk policy in the company and also to the particular aim of the product development, whether it be original product innovations, adopted product innovations, a new product platform, product improvements, or product line extensions.

So there are no necessary set activities in the product development project, but there are generic activities that occur in so many projects that they are almost universal. These have been identified throughout the book.