Enabling Continuous Improvement of New Product Development Processes

Abstract

This paper reports on the first phase of ongoing research into ‘enablers' of continuous improvement (CI) within new product development (NPD) processes. In order to increase the relevance of work carried out during the second phase of the project, which involves implementing enablers in two firms, a wider group of practitioners was consulted to discover which aspects of CI within NPD were of most interest to their organizations and to identify their weaknesses in this area. Data from seven companies show that major deficiencies in all the firms are the absence of a strategic approach to the development of CI, and the failure to capture, share and deploy learning that is taking place. These shortcomings are particularly significant for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that can ill afford to keep ‘reinventing the wheel’ or to risk wasting resources by failing to create a CI system that is sustainable in the long term.