New product development

There are some characteristics that should be embedded in any New Product Development (NPD) process. This includes customer input, the involvement of cross functional teams, strong project management, concurrent engineering and risk management tools. For example marketing and design are not the only departments that need to be involved in NPD, production/construction also need to be included.

There are also some technical issues that should always be focused on such as ensuring the new product fits the existing infrastructure for example that it can be made using the existing tools and component parts, this will avoid significant capital cost or transition costs.

However, a generic process for NPD could include the following steps.

1. Alignment with Business Strategy

2. Ideal generation

3. Concept development

4. Requirement analysis

5. Feasibility assessment

6. Business analysis (ROI, capability, cross functional department evaluation)

7. Design development

8. Cross functional and customer focus group assessment of design

9. Product development

10. Prototype (pilot) with cross functional team and customer focus group assessment

11. Test market