The creation and application of a self-assessment process for new product introduction

Abstract

The new product introduction (NPI) process within the automotive sector is under constant pressure to deliver products with ever increasing levels of performance improvement, which is being compounded by the added complexity of organisational rationalisation through mergers and acquisitions. NPI processes are often defined and implemented along common generic themes, whilst the detailed process description and practices vary across organisations, often causing inconsistent application and process conformance. The NPI process implementation is often reviewed in a conventional audit mode, which does not tend to facilitate senior management and supplier involvement, or drive organisational learning to improve the process. This paper presents a summary of research carried out to create a self-assessment process, based on the principles of Hoshin Kanri—policy deployment—for new product introduction. The self-assessment process was adapted and applied at Land Rover, resulting in the achievement of significantly improved programme performance measures on the Freelander compact sport utility vehicle programme. Because the project team owned the self-assessment approach it created real-time organisational learning to simultaneously achieve rigorous process deployment, and continuous improvement. This self-assessment process for new product introduction can be adapted and applied by organisations to evaluate their performance against best practice, and improve conformance through rigorous application.