Concurrent Product Development Research Articles

Sequential versus concurrent final phase product development: Approval uncertainty, time‐sensitive consumers, asymmetric competition, and government subsidy

Should a firm begin its production even before its new product is approved? In a competitive market with time‐sensitive consumers, a firm may choose to adopt the “concurrent process” by conducting the approval process and the production process in parallel so that the product will become available for sale once approved. However, to avoid incurring upfront (production related) investments that are nonrecoverable should the product fail to receive approval, a firm may opt for the “sequential process” so that the production process will only begin after approval. But such a sequential process can delay product launch, making the firm less competitive. These trade‐offs between the concurrent and sequential development processes and the recent Covid‐19 vaccine development motivate us to examine the process choice in the presence of three salient factors: (a) uncertain product approval, (b) time‐sensitive consumers, and (c) asymmetric firm competition—firms have different ex ante approval probabilities. Our equilibrium analysis reveals that it is possible for the laggard firm (the firm with lower ex ante approval probability) to aggressively adopt the concurrent process whereas the leading firm (the firm with higher ex ante approval probability) adopts the sequential process. First, as the approval requirement tightens, both firms have a lower chance of receiving approval, and the laggard firm is more likely to adopt the sequential process than the leading firm. Second, as consumers become more time sensitive, the leading firm is more eager to adopt the concurrent process than the laggard firm. Finally, when the firm asymmetry is large, competition does not always soften and both firms may compete directly by adopting the sequential process. We also examine the case when consumers are “forward‐looking” instead of “myopic.” We find that forward‐looking behavior increases competition and motivates both firms to adopt the concurrent process. Finally, we consider the case when the government offers subsidies to defray the nonrecoverable investments to increase the chance of having an approved product available sooner. Interestingly, we find such a subsidy can backfire resulting in lower consumer welfare and lower profit for the firms especially when consumers are time insensitive.

It Capabilities and Firm Performance: Unpacking the Effect of Concurrent New Product Development and Supply Chain Integration

It Capabilities and Firm Performance: Unpacking the Effect of Concurrent New Product Development and Supply Chain Integration

Sequential versus Concurrent Product Development: Approval Uncertainty, Time-Sensitive Consumption Utility, and Asymmetric Competition

Sequential versus Concurrent Product Development: Approval Uncertainty, Time-Sensitive Consumption Utility, and Asymmetric Competition

A New Product Development Model for SMEs: Introducing Agility to the Plan-Driven Concurrent Product Development Approach

In order to survive in today’s highly competitive global market, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have had to transition from sequential to concurrent product development, which significantly shortens development cycles, reduces costs, and ensures high product quality. Despite its many benefits, concurrent product development is still based on detailed upfront planning and cannot address the challenges related to today’s ever-growing uncertainty, constantly changing environment, and unstable requirements. A potential solution to this problem could be in more flexible and value-driven agile project management (APM) approaches, typical of software development. In this paper, we propose a new product development model specifically appropriate for SMEs that combines concurrent product development principles with APM elements. It is designed as a loop of five repetitive steps (macroplan, microplan, iteration activities, review, and retrospective) that are being executed within individual concurrent development loops. The application of the model is presented on a real case example of process development and small batch manufacture of a complex wiring harness. The study reveals many benefits of the proposed model, such as improved communication, faster detection of discrepancies, more effective problem solving, and greater flexibility. A positive impact on project success is also observed.

Agile-Concurrent hybrid: A framework for concurrent product development using Scrum

Agile development became very popular at the beginning of the 21st century when the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was released. Since then, it has been predominant in the software industry and has been increasingly transferred to the development of physical products due to its great success. There are many studies on Agile-Stage-Gate hybrids that combine agile Scrum and the traditional Stage-Gate model, however no research has been found that addresses a direct integration of Scrum into a concurrent product development model in a similar way. In this paper, we therefore examine the possibility of introducing Scrum into the concurrent product development and propose a Scrum framework for an Agile-Concurrent hybrid. We propose that the framework for concurrent development remains unchanged: the stages overlap and the track-and-loop approach is preserved, while Scrum is proposed for the execution of day-to-day work. The main advantage of the proposed hybrid is that after each iteration the customer reviews the results of an entire loop, not just of one stage, which enables a broader understanding of the progress and facilitates a more extensive feedback. A quicker resolution of discrepancies, and a faster and more effective response to change is thus ensured. In the paper, the needed organizational changes and potential implementation issues are also discussed.

Dealing with Project Characteristics through Concurrent Product Development by Malaysian Car Producer

Dealing with Project Characteristics through Concurrent Product Development by Malaysian Car Producer

Toward robust concurrent product development across the supply chain: a risk assessment framework

ABSTRACTStrategic relationships with key suppliers are required for sustaining growth and creating competitive product development advantage. Managing key partners and suppliers who have a significant role in the design of their product’s major subsystems, and the increased risk that they introduce into the product development process is a key activity that is crucial to their successful integration. The common challenges faced by product integrators and suppliers during concurrent product development highlight the need for framework that allows integrators and suppliers to effectively design systems and subsystems concurrently and robustly. In this work, metrics are developed to quantitatively assess risk from supplier interactions. This is accomplished by quantifying the relative importance, the degree of customisation and the degree of coupling at the level of the engineering metrics, of the individual supplier subsystems and at the project-level. With these metrics, Intra-Supplier, Inter-Supplier and Inter-Projects risks can be assessed. The detailed development of these metrics, as well as their application to the development of a monochrome multi-functional printer to demonstrate the utility of the assessment framework is presented in this paper.

In Silico Design of Materials and Processes: An Application of ICME to Carburizing Steels

The availability of high computational power and sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques has ushered in a new era of multiscale and multiphysics materials and process modeling to accelerate engineering decision making. These developments have led to the concept of integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) which aims for concurrent design and development of materials, processes and products by making use of detailed material modeling supported by supplementary data-driven modeling and multiobjective optimization techniques. The present work focuses on adopting an ICME approach for concurrent design of carburizing-grade steel and process using integrated process modeling and design exploration technique. An integrated, composition-dependent, microstructure-based modeling module is used to model the process route of carburizing–quenching–tempering for carburizing-grade steels. The module is used to explore various combinations of composition and process set-points for predicting different microstructure and property outputs. The output generated by this module is used to develop surrogate models which is then used in a solution space exploration framework to obtain the most suitable composition and process conditions that can result in the desired requirements associated with the properties of final product while maintaining different operational constraints. The results predicted by the proposed framework are discussed and the need for in silico design approach for materials and process development is highlighted.

Communication and Knowledge Management Platform for Concurrent Product and Assembly System Development

Abstract In order to generate a common understanding during assembly systems development, a method is devised. This method improves communication and knowledge management and is implemented as a software tool. The tool visualizes the assembly system with its components and the interconnection between them. Individual parts and subassemblies of the product, the necessary assembly processes and the associated production resources are schematically visualized and represented by means of visualization objects. In order to improve knowledge retrieval, a method for semantic description of the individual components as well as their CAD-files will be proposed. The bundling of information and files in one software platform enables fast and cross-project access to existing concepts and drawings. By connecting interrelated objects, a graph of the assembly system is created. The web-based implementation of the platform, the schematic visualization of the assembly system as well the possibility to search semantic descriptions of data improves communication and access to existing knowledge.

Integrating Product and Technology Development: A Proposed Reference Model for Dual Innovation

Although dual innovation projects, defined in this article as the concurrent development of products and technologies, often occur in industry, these are only scarcely supported methodologically. Limited research has been done about dual innovation projects and their inherent challenges (e.g. managing dependencies) and opportunities (e.g. streamlining development). This paper presents five existing reference models for technology development (TD), which were identified via a systematic literature review, where their possible integration with product development (PD) reference models was investigated. Based on the specific characteristics desired for dual innovation projects, such as integrated product development and coverage of multiple development stages, a set of selection criteria was employed to select suitable PD and TD reference models. The integration and adaptation of the selected models has led to a proposed integrated reference model for dual innovation that is currently being instantiated in the context of an ongoing action research project.

The use of a GERT based method to model concurrent product development processes

This paper proposes a time-computing model using the Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT) to analyse concurrent New Product Development (NPD) processes. The research presented here differs from previous work carried out on concurrent engineering. First, we conceptualise a concurrent NPD process using the GERT scheduling technique and derive a method of modelling the information and communication complexities within the process. Second, we extend previous research carried out on concurrent engineering and incorporate it within our model. Finally, we present an alternative method of analysing concurrent NPD process for both researchers and project managers alike. The GERT model developed in this paper was successfully employed at two NPD firms located in Ireland and Iran.

The effect of cost goal specificity and new product development process on cost reduction performance

Many firms that compete based on the development of new and innovative products have begun to adopt concurrent new product development (NPD) processes in which product design phases occur in a non-linear and iterative manner. While concurrent NPD processes increase flexibility and reduce time-to-market as compared to traditional sequential processes, concurrency increases task uncertainty since the product design process begins before all important product features and specifications have been established. Such changes can result in costly redesign and rework. Prior research suggests target costing, where product design teams are assigned specific cost goals, is an effective method of controlling costs in sequential NPD. Even so, it is unclear whether target costing will improve cost reduction performance when combined with a concurrent NPD process due to increased task uncertainty. We examine experimentally the ability of product design groups to achieve specific or general cost reduction goals under simulated sequential or concurrent NPD. We predict and find that the nature of the NPD process moderates the effect of specific cost reduction goals on actual cost reduction performance. While specific cost goals result in higher reductions in product cost than general cost goals under a sequential NPD process, specific goals are no better than general goals in motivating design groups to reduce product cost under a concurrent NPD process; thus, we demonstrate boundary conditions on the usefulness of target costing as a cost control method.

Concurrent Knowledge Sharing and its Importance in Product Development

Concurrent engineering and knowledge sharing are both competitive practices that help sustain cross-functional communication for improved product development performance. Concurrent engineering enables structured integrated design while knowledge sharing enables the ability of an organization to access knowledge. However, little is known about how these two approaches support each other in the product development process. This study aims to investigate the importance of concurrent knowledge sharing in product development with an emphasis on Malaysian electronics organizations. A total of 150 survey responses are collected and analyzed using reliability, correlations and multiple linear regression analyses. The results show that product development is significantly affected by concurrent knowledge sharing. A total of 53.3% of the variance in product development can be explained by the concurrent knowledge sharing variables. The correlation between concurrent product realization and product development is significantly higher than the other correlations (R = 0.637, p<0.001) since concurrent product realization enables rapid product quality development through design time and lead time reduction. When all the variables were compositely tested against product development, the overall correlation increased (R = 0.732). These findings show that the support of knowledge sharing initiatives alongside concurrent engineering approaches can significantly affect product development performance. This study improves the understanding on the importance of concurrent knowledge sharing in product development which can help uncover strategies on how it can improve the electronics industry and support Malaysia's economy.

Study on the Development Model of Green Products Based on Concurrent Engineering

concurrent engineering product development from the beginning of the design requirements, it must consider the various factors in the product life cycle, to shorten product development cycle, improve product quality, reduce the green characteristics of product cost, product realization, enhancing the competition ability of the enterprise purpose. Because in the whole process of product lifecycle highly concurrent engineering station, effect that participants work together, reconstruction of product development process and using advanced design methods, contributes to the technical information, economic information, environmental information, energy and resource information and insurance information of organic integration of each stage in the life cycle of product green design, the realization of green products from a life-cycle perspective. Therefore, the concurrent engineering is the core of the design and development of green products.

3D Machine Vision and Additive Manufacturing: Concurrent Product and Process Development

The manufacturing environment rapidly changes in turbulence fashion. Digital manufacturing (DM) plays a significant role and one of the key strategies in setting up vision and strategic planning toward the knowledge based manufacturing. An approach of combining 3D machine vision (3D-MV) and an Additive Manufacturing (AM) may finally be finding its niche in manufacturing. This paper briefly overviews the integration of the 3D machine vision and AM in concurrent product and process development, the challenges and opportunities, the implementation of the 3D-MV and AM at POLMAN Bandung in accelerating product design and process development, and discusses a direct deployment of this approach on a real case from our industrial partners that have placed this as one of the very important and strategic approach in research as well as product/prototype development. The strategic aspects and needs of this combination approach in research, design and development are main concerns of the presentation.

A STUDY ON CONCURRENT ENGINEERING-BASED DESIGN AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

A STUDY ON CONCURRENT ENGINEERING-BASED DESIGN AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Product Evaluation in Stages Based on Robust Design

Based on the study and analysis of product design evaluation, structure model of product evaluation in stages based on robust design is presented, and the key technologies are studied. Robust design aims to develop a product that satisfies design requirements while ensuring minimal effects of environmental variability on product performance. The different methods of robust design are applied in product evaluate according to design stage characteristics. Based on mechanical transmission design, a design evaluation system is implemented with the computer. The system is help for concurrent product development in whole life cycle.

New Product Development: Impact of Project Characteristics and Development Practices on Performance

Concurrent product development process and integrated product development teams have emerged as the two dominant new product development (NPD) “best practices” in the literature. Yet empirical evidence of their impact on product development success remains inconclusive. This paper draws upon organizational information processing theory (OIPT) to explore how these two dominant NPD best practices and two key aspects of NPD project characteristics (i.e., project uncertainty and project complexity) directly and jointly affect the NPD performance. Contrary to the “best practice” literature, the analysis, based on 266 NPD projects from three industries (i.e., automotive, electronics, and machinery) across nine countries (i.e., Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United States), found no evidence of any direct impact of process concurrency or team integration on overall NPD performance. Instead, there is evidence of negative impact of the interaction between project uncertainty and concurrent NPD process and positive impact of the interaction between project complexity and team integration on overall NPD performance. Moreover, the study found no evidence of any direct negative impact of project uncertainty or complexity on overall NPD performance as suggested in the literature, but found evidence of a direct positive relationship between project complexity and overall NPD performance.The practical implications of these results are significant. First, neither process concurrency nor team integration should be embraced universally as best practice. Second, process concurrency should be avoided in projects with high uncertainty (i.e., when working with unfamiliar product, market, or technology). Finally, team integration should be encouraged for complex product development projects. For a simple product a loosely integrated team or a more centralized decision process may work well. However, as project complexity increases, team integration becomes essential for improved product development. There is no one‐size‐fits‐all solution for managing NPD projects. The choice of a product development practice should be determined by the project characteristics.

A QFD- and concurrent engineering-based outsourced product development methodology for ODM customers

Although the original design manufacturing (ODM) outsourcing business model has been quite popular among various industries, many ODM customers do not have dedicated product development methodologies for their ODM-outsourced product development. Instead, they use their in-house methodologies that often lead to serious quality issues and schedule delays during the product development process. In order for the ODM outsourcing project to succeed, a dedicated product development methodology is necessary for an ODM customer to develop products with its ODM suppliers. The objective of this article is to present a quality function deployment- and concurrent engineering-based outsourced product development methodology for ODM customers to use in place of their current in-house product development methodologies. Fifteen people from nine Taiwanese electronics companies were interviewed regarding their ODM-outsourced product development process. Findings from these interviews were used to develop the proposed methodology. Three case studies focusing on the implementation of the proposed methodology in successful projects are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

A Quantitative Evaluation of Concurrent Product Development Effectiveness Theories

We suggest new directions for research on the effectiveness of concurrent product development. These models relate overlapping or functional integration to performance using analytical, simulation, or statistical methods. By collecting quantitative data from 82 research articles, we ascertain the percentage of a methodology's models that have incorporated each of certain significant theoretical features. We then use this information to recommend important underutilized features and a comprehensive theory that integrates the features. Analytical and simulation modelers could make more use of functional integration, while statistical modelers could attend more to overlapping, rework, and the constituent phases of the development process. Then, in finding a subset of interrelated features appearing simultaneously in a majority of a methodology's models, we identify a core theory upon which models in the mainstream build. Next, our study offers specific mutual learning suggestions through which modeling efforts in any one methodology might facilitate modeling efforts in another methodology. Analytical and simulation modelers could study the reluctance to transmit and use preliminary information, while statistical researchers could develop dynamic models. Finally, the study provides a template for researchers willing to apply our evaluation methods to other areas.