Requirements for the design of a complexity management method in new product development of integral and modular products

Abstract

Complexity influences the success of new product development (NPD) and thus the competitiveness of a company, e.g. product complexity influences supply chain management and NPD process itself. There is therefore the need of a complexity management method to support managers in taking proper NPD decisions. In a complexity management method different requirements are important. Our research aims at assessing the relevance of the different requirements of the complexity management methods depending on the type of NPD project, i.e. according to the development of integral or modular product. The main result of our research is that the importance levels of the requirements do not differ strongly among each other. However, there are slight differences regarding the product architectures – complexity management method requirements for modular product NPD projects have generally a higher importance level than those for integral product NPD projects. Keywords : Complexity Management, New Product Development, NPD Project Complexity, Product Architecture.