New Product Development Projects Research Articles

Product–firm compatibility in new product development in technology companies

We present an exploratory investigation of how managers conceptualize and perceive ‘product–firm compatibility’ variables in successful and unsuccessful new product development (NPD) projects, and explore the role that they play in differentiating between successful and unsuccessful NPD outcomes.The findings show that managers perceive two distinctive types of product–firm compatibility factors, technology and marketing. Furthermore an ‘advertising–finance’ factor in the unsuccessful NPD projects emerged. Consequently differences exist in metric equivalence across successful and unsuccessful NPD projects, and thus the comparison of the successful and unsuccessful NPD projects should be done with caution. All product–firm compatibility variables and factors are positively related to NPD success. The managers, however, put lower relative importance to marketing in comparison to technology variables and factors.

Deployment maturity assessment of product lifecycle management systems: a study in Indian industries

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a strategic business approach for enabling innovation, product development, market deployment and disposal. The practice of PLM is comprehensively enabled by product lifecycle management systems (PLMS) that comprise an integrated set of various software products that are blended into organisational policies and practices concerning new product development (NPD). Effective adoption and implementation of PLMS necessarily require their deployment to be assessed for deployment maturity. On a positive note, PLMS deployment maturity has been found to be closely associated with the success rate of NPD projects. This work proposes a ‘PLMS deployment maturity assessment framework’ that will help organisations assess themselves across different stages of adopting, implementing and evaluating PLM. This work also analysis the deployment maturity of PLMS components of 29 Indian organisations using non-parametric statistical tests. Based on the primary data the work ascertains and estimates the deployment maturity prevailing among the organisations, for the chosen industries. Additionally, this research compares PLMS deployment maturity between three major industries: automotive, aerospace, and hi-tech. We conclude that there exist significant differences between the industries. These results help the organisations to assess themselves on PLMS deployment maturity at each component level.

Implementation of project strategy to improve new product development performance

Poor project strategy is one of the major causes of project failure. However, many projects do not adequately develop strategy leading to a poor basis in subsequent phases. Thus, implementation of project strategy is critical to the success of any project. The primary purpose of this study was to validate a model for assessing the relationships among implementation of project strategy, new product development (NPD) project outcomes, and market performance. The analyses suggest that implementation of differentiation, operational, and quality strategies may improve NPD project outcomes. The research results also imply that improvement in NPD project outcomes may enhance market performance, while it helps accomplish the market share and sales goals.

A Framework for successful new product development

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of critical success factors, metrics, and tools and techniques for implementing metrics for each stage of the new product development (NPD) process. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this objective, a literature review was undertaken to investigate decades of studies on NPD success and how it can be achieved. These studies were scanned for common factors for firms that enjoyed success of new products on the market. Findings: The paper summarizes NPD success factors, suggests metrics that should be used to measure these factors, and proposes tools and techniques to make use of these metrics. This was done for each stage of the NPD process, and brought together in a framework that the authors propose should be followed for complex NPD projects. Research limitations/implications: Several different research directions could provide additional useful information both to firms finding critical success factors (CSF) and measuring product development success as well as to academics performing research in this area. The main research opportunity exists in implementing or testing the proposed framework. Practical implications: The framework can be followed by managers of complex NPD projects to ensure success. Originality/value: While many studies have been conducted on critical success factors for NPD, these studies tend to be fragmented and focus on one or a few phases of the NPD process. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a framework that synthesizes these studies into a single framework.

An innovative new product development strategy: The Key success paths approach

Given the rapid changes in the high-tech industry and fierce global competition in the market, shortening the life cycle of a product is necessary. Such a backdrop highlights the role of new product development (NPD). Many studies have explored how the outcomes of NPD projects are affected by key success factors (KSFs). In this paper, we investigated key success paths (KSPs) approach by creating and implementing various combinations of KSFs and NPD outcomes. Specifically, we consider the idea that KSPs drive NPD strategies in achieving high performance in terms of outcomes through multiple combinations that may be based on the competitive advantages of companies and industries. In addition, we apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) along with the fs/QCA software tool to analyze the causal relationship between KSFs and NPD outcomes. We obtain multiple results, including verification of the KSP concept. KSPs approach help allocate resources and appropriately enriched information, and should be chosen using a combination of multiple KSFs based on a company’s competitive advantages to successfully attain desired outcomes. Key words: New product development, key success factors, qualitative comparative analysis, fuzzy set theory, key success paths.

Antecedents of Team Intuition and Its Impact on the Success of New Product Development Projects

Research on new product development (NPD) team decision making has identified a number of cognitive mechanisms (e.g., team intelligence, teamwork quality, and charged behavior) that appear to guide NPD teams toward effective decisions. Despite an extensive body of literature on these aspects of NPD team decisions, team intuition has yet to be investigated in the context of NPD teams. Intuition is regarded as a form of information processing that differs from cognitive processes, and is associated with gut feelings, hunches, and mystical insights. Past research on intuition suggests that many managers and teams embrace intuition as an effective approach in response to situations in a turbulent environment where decisions need to be made immediately. Past research also revealed various benefits of intuition in decision making. These are: to speed up decision-making process, to improve decision outcomes such as higher product quality, and to solve less structured problems (e.g., new product planning). This research examines the impact of team-related antecedents (e.g., team member experience) and decision-specific antecedents (e.g., decision importance) on intuition in NPD teams. The moderating impact of environmental turbulence between antecedent variables and intuition, as well as between intuition and team performance, is investigated. To test hypotheses, data were collected from 155 NPD projects in Turkey. The results showed that past team member experience, transactive memory systems (TMS), team empowerment, decision importance, and decision motives are significantly related to team intuition. The results also revealed that team intuition is significantly related to product success and speed-to-market, with both high and low levels of market turbulence. The findings of this study present some interesting practical implications to managers in order to improve intuitive skills of NPD teams. First, managers should make sure that team members have the relevant expertise to facilitate effective intuition. Second, managers should encourage and enhance TMS for effective intuition. If team members are not able to gain timely and unhindered access to others who have the needed experience and knowledge, past team member experience becomes idle in order to make effective intuitive judgments. Third, managers concerned with achieving successfully developed products and helping teams to make immediate but accurate decisions during NPD process should assign more power to team members so that they can rely on their intuitive skills.

Identifying the moderating influences of external environments on new product development process

Few studies have attempted to investigate the following: (1) whether the firm's core capabilities or resources and routines (e.g., integration among functions) for product development, in the presence of environmental dynamics, become incumbent inertia or core rigidities? and (2) how environmental dynamics affect the influence of a project team's implementation capabilities in the new product development (NPD) process on new product launch performance? This study approaches these questions by addressing the three most indispensable NPD process components (i.e., marketing, technology, and organization) and incorporating new moderators, namely pace of technological change and competitive intensity, within a single study. It specifically examines the extent to which the latter two external environmental variables moderate the impact of NPD practices on new product launch outcome. Data obtained from a survey of NPD projects developed and launched by Korean manufacturers suggest that environmental dynamics would reduce the contribution of functional-specific sources of advantage (resources) and project-specific sources of advantage (e.g., integration among functions) to organizational implementation capabilities (i.e., a project team's proficiency in executing NPD activities). Moreover, the research also shows that market dynamics may increase the contribution of organizational implementation capabilities to NPD project performance.

Market intelligence and NPD success: a study of technology intensive companies in Finland

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how managers in technology‐intensive companies conceptualize and perceive “intelligence” variables in successful and unsuccessful new product development (NPD) projects, and explore the role that intelligence variables play in differentiating between successful and unsuccessful NPD outcomes. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe most senior person responsible for NPD within a sample of Finnish technology‐intensive companies completed a self‐administered internet survey on the role of intelligence in successful and unsuccessful NPD projects. The JMP 1‐2‐3‐software package (version 8 for Mac) by SAS was used for statistical analysis.FindingsThe findings indicate that managers in technology‐intensive companies rely on two broad types of intelligence, technical production and market information, during the NPD process. Most intelligence variables are positively related to NPD success. In addition, it appears that managers attach lower importance to intelligence variables in successful NPD outcomes when comparisons are made with previous research.Practical implicationsManagers in Finnish technology‐intensive companies should carefully analyze both technical‐production information and market information in the NPD process although technical‐production information is the more important factor in the analysis of information requirements in successful NPD outcomes relative to market information.Originality/valueAlthough market intelligence variables have been studied in the context of differentiating successful and unsuccessful industrial NPD, they have largely focused on the NPD process in broad‐based industrial and manufacturing companies. The paper examines the role of market intelligence in the NPD process of technology‐intensive companies using Finland as the study setting.

Escalation, De‐escalation, or Reformulation: Effective Interventions in Delayed NPD Projects

At the start of any project, new product development (NPD) teams must make accurate decisions about development time, development costs, and product performance. Such profit‐maximizing decision making becomes particularly difficult when the project runs behind schedule and requires intervention decisions too. To simplify their decision making, NPD teams often use heuristics instead of comprehensive assessments of trade‐offs among the aforementioned metrics. This study employs a simulation based on a system dynamics approach to examine the effectiveness of different decision heuristics (i.e., time, cost, and product performance). The results show that teams are better off if they decide to intervene rather than do nothing (escalation of commitment), but in making these interventions there is no single best decision heuristic. The most effective interventions combine decision heuristics, and the most effective combination is a function of the development time elapsed. For teams that discover schedule problems relatively early on in the development process, the best possible intervention is to increase both team size and product performance (combining the time and product performance heuristic). When teams discover schedule problems relatively late, the best intervention option is to decrease product performance and increase team size (combining the time and cost heuristic). In both situations, however, the best intervention combines two heuristics, with a trade‐off across time, cost, and performance. In other words, trading off three project objectives outperforms trading off only two of them. These findings contribute to the extant literature by suggesting that, when the project is behind schedule, the choice extends beyond just escalating or de‐escalating commitment to initial project objectives. Other than sticking to a losing course of action or cutting losses, there is an alternative: Commit to renewing the project. In this case, project lateness represents an opportunity to reformulate project objectives in response to new market information, which may lead to new product ideas and increased product performance.

A model for selecting a new product development project portfolio

The key to enhancing competitiveness of enterprises is new product development (NPD). The screening of potential NPD project portfolios to gain competitive advantage has become the main concern of product managers. However, the most difficult problem with portfolio decisions is the fuzziness of the related information. Therefore, this study proposes a product portfolio selection model (PPSM) to help enterprises focus on the most feasible NPD project portfolio. PPSM utilizes fuzzy-gate (FG) to control and kill inferior NPD projects to avoid possible future sunk costs. Furthermore, PPSM can select better NPD projects to maximize portfolio synergy, hence, increasing the flexibility of planning and deployment of enterprises resources. A projector firm is used to illustrate the application of the proposed PPSM model.

Supply network delegation and intervention strategies during supplier involvement in new product development

PurposeThis paper proposes and empirically investigates two strategies that companies can employ to involve indirect suppliers in new product development (NPD): supply network delegation; and supply network intervention. The implications of the two strategies are explored.Design/methodology/approachThe paper brings together the traditional NPD literature, organizational behaviour and organizational economics literature, and reports on three in‐depth case studies of NPD projects, involving 39 semi‐structured interviews across three supply networks.FindingsThe findings reveal different manifestations of the two strategies of supply network intervention and delegation, when applied as part of supplier involvement in product development, and positive and negative indications of delegation and intervention, depending on the actor perspective: manufacturers perceive a need to control the product development process across several supply network tiers through intervention in supplier selection and communication, but these actions are likely to “tie the hands of the suppliers”.Practical implicationsManagers are advised to explicitly delegate decisions to suppliers, for example, by issuing parts approval lists and encouraging communication and problem solving amongst suppliers, and to exercise caution in applying the intervention strategy.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to a better understanding of how to involve indirect (sub‐) suppliers in product development, and the implications of these actions for multiple supply network actors.

Market Information Processing in New Product Development: The Importance of Process Interdependency and Data Quality

While there is a growing interest in the role of market information processing activities (i.e., the acquisition, dissemination, and use of market information) in new product development (NPD), a number of gaps remain in our knowledge on this topic. When investigating the performance impact of market information processing, most studies have treated the three activities as independent. Our research adds to the extant knowledge by exploring not only both direct relationships between each of the market information processing activities and new product performance, but also interaction effects. We, thus, ask the question of whether there may be synergies in obtaining performance increases by jointly improving two processing activities, rather than just considering each activity independently. In addition, we investigate these effects for different levels of information quality; a topic largely neglected in the market information processing literature. Our analysis is based on empirical data from 152 Dutch NPD projects. The results indicate that market information acquisition and use are both directly associated with increased performance. We also find significant interaction effects for information acquisition and dissemination, and for information dissemination and use. Finally, the importance of information quality is emphasized, with lower quality information producing lower performance and wiping out the effects between various aspects of market information processing and new product performance. We provide several implications of our findings for managers and academics.

Does Strategic Planning Enhance or Impede Innovation and Firm Performance?*

Does strategic planning enhance or impede innovation and firm performance? The current literature provides contradictory views. This study extends the resource-advantage theory to examine the conditions in which strategic planning increases or decreases the number of new product development projects and firm performance. The authors test the theoretical model by collecting data from 227 firms. The empirical evidence suggests that more strategic planning and more new product development (NPD) projects lead to better firm performance. Firms with organizational redundancy benefit more from strategic planning than firms with less organizational redundancy. Increasing R&D intensity boosts both the number of NPD projects and firm performance. Strategic planning is more effective in larger firms with higher R&D intensity for increasing the number of NPD projects. The results reported in this study also consist of several findings that challenge the traditional views of strategic planning. The evidence suggests that strategic planning impedes, not enhances, the number of NPD projects. Larger firms benefit less, not more, from strategic planning for improving firm performance. Larger firms do not necessarily create more NPD projects. Increasing organizational redundancy has no effect on the number of NPD projects. These empirical results provide important strategic implications. First, managers should be aware that, in general, formal strategic planning decreases the number of NPD projects for innovation management. Improvised rather than planned activities are more conducive to creating NPD project ideas. Moreover, innovations tend to emerge from improvisational processes, during which the impromptu execution of NPD activities without planning spurs “thinking outside the box,” which enhances the process of creating NPD project ideas. Therefore, more flexible strategic plans that accommodate potential improvisation may be needed in NPD management since innovation-related activities cannot be planned precisely due to the unexpected jolts and contingencies of the NPD process. Second, large firms with high levels of R&D intensity can overcome the negative effect of strategic planning on the number of NPD projects. Specifically, a firm's abundant resources, when allocated and deployed for NPD activities, signal the high priority and importance of the NPD activities and thus motivate employees to acquire, collect, and gather customer and technical knowledge, which leads to creating more NPD projects. Finally, managers must understand that managing strategic planning and generating NPD project ideas are beneficial to the ultimate outcome of firm performance despite the adverse relationship between strategic planning and the number of NPD projects.

Power assessment as a high-level partner selection criterion for new product development projects

In new product development (NPD) projects, various partners may be involved at different phases and their participation can lead to either success or failure of the project. Therefore, a company that launches an NPD project has to carefully select the most appropriate partners. Currently, partner selection in supply chains is often performed according to well-known criteria such as cost, delay and quality. However, problems could emerge in such processes due to the unavoidable power disequilibrium of the parties involved. The strongest party will sooner or later force the weaker ones to accept more challenging constraints. The use and abuse of power will lead to doubtless mistrust and frustration. Therefore, the awareness of the suppliers' power before any collaboration is of upmost importance and in realistic situations, it should be used as a high-level selection criterion. This article argues that the power of partners represents a significant issue for the achievement of a coherent supplier selection strategy. An innovative method is suggested to assess the power of each potential partner based on its performances. The joint use of a power-based selection approach and a performance-based selection approach is illustrated at the end of the article. This study demonstrates how power consideration can help decision makers in selecting more relevant partners.

The impact of front end innovation in new product development in Japanese manufacturing companies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore fuzzy front end (FFE) of new product development (NPD) in Japanese manufacturing companies and report on the key factors for success with regard to the front end activities of NPD.Design/methodology/approachOn the basis of the literature review, the authors lay out an analytical framework and hypothesis and develop and test a causal model of relationships among key variables relating to the front end factors and success. The causal model is tested with AMOS using information from 513 completed NPD projects from Japanese manufacturing companies.FindingsThe results of this study are summarized as follows: first, the more both market and technical uncertainties are reduced during the front end, the higher is the effectiveness of NPD projects. Second, the more intensively new projects are planned prior to the start of development, the more both market and technical uncertainties are reduced. Finally, in the industry goods firms, it is easy for managers to develop the initial planning, and it has a greater impact on reduction of market uncertainty compared to the consumer goods firms.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, it is the scope and size of the sample. Our research mainly focuses on the precision apparatus, chemical and material products, electronic products, food processing and pharmaceutical industry in Japan. Second, the research concentrates less on the interaction between initial planning, planning changes and process management style.Practical implicationsThe paper provides several insights that will help managers to improve the success of their NPD activities.Originality/valueThe paper provides additional evidence regarding the strong positive effect of FFE activities on NPD success. The model presented enhances understanding of the dynamics of the FFE.

RISK ASSESSMENT AND ACTION SELECTION IN PRELIMINARY DESIGN

New product development (NPD) has typically had strategic implications for the success and prosperity of an organization. This paper applied refined failure mode and effect analysis and genetic algorithm techniques to develop and establish an integrated risk analysis model for improving preliminary design of NPD. Three core items, technological performance, cost, and schedule risk, were used to improve the process of preliminary design and resource allocation in NPD projects. Risk severity, occurrence, and correlation characteristics are collected for each core item. A real study case was implemented to conclude an improving design decision and process change for NPD project.

Cross‐Functional Integration of R&D, Marketing, and Manufacturing in Radical and Incremental Product Innovations and Its Effects on Project Effectiveness and Efficiency

Previous research commonly emphasizes the positive effects of cross‐functional integration on performance measures. However, cross‐functional integration is a highly complex phenomenon which does not allow general conclusions in terms of performance impacts. Therefore, the present study assesses the impact of integrating the R&D, marketing, and manufacturing functions on the effectiveness and efficiency of new product development (NPD) projects. A multi‐functional design is applied that considers three functions, including manufacturing, which has been often neglected in prior research on cross‐functional integration. Further, the study distinguishes between two phases of the NPD process, namely the development and commercialization phases. In building the sample care was particularly taken to include a sufficient number of highly innovative NPD projects to cover the full range in terms of project innovativeness. This allows assessing the moderating role of project innovativeness on the effects of cross‐functional integration on NPD performance.A research model incorporating these ideas is theoretically developed and empirically validated by means of survey data. One hundred and eighteen NPD project managers participated in the survey (50 incremental and 68 radical innovation projects). Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the research model. More concretely, partial least squares (PLS) was used as the most accepted variance‐based approach.Generally, the findings emphasize that the relationships between various facets of cross‐functional integration and performance measures are highly complex. The integration between R&D and marketing positively impacts efficiency, but not effectiveness across different types of projects. Further, the impact of integration between marketing and R&D depends on the process stage and the degree of innovativeness. Findings regarding the integration between R&D and manufacturing show a strong positive impact on efficiency in the development phase. With respect to the integration between marketing and manufacturing, no significant effects on the performance dimensions can be observed for radical NPD projects. Overall, a positive impact of integration between these departments on effectiveness in the commercialization phase emerges.

Organizational politics in new product development project selection

PurposeFirms engaged in new product development (NPD) have to achieve a balanced portfolio of NPD projects. Despite the large number of models purporting to support portfolio optimization, most of them do not take into account political bias in project selection decisions. This paper aims to analyze approaches of organizational politics to NPD project selection and their implications for NPD portfolio management and future research.Design/methodology/approachA review is made of the current literature at the intersection between organizational politics and NPD project selection. With regard to the underlying assumptions of organizational politics, similarities, differences, practical implications, and research perspectives are identified.FindingsFrom the paper, insights could be gained into explaining the effects of organizational politics on NPD project selection. However, the differences in assumptions that can be generally observed in organizational politics are also reflected in the studies analyzed. Future research could benefit from integrating different political and methodological perspectives.Practical implicationsIn order to reach a balanced NPD portfolio, the potentially dysfunctional biases which characterize political processes from idea generation to project selection should be addressed. A concept of NPD portfolio management is proposed which considers the management of power and politics.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a more comprehensive overview of political approaches of NPD project selection and serves as a sound basis for future research. The relevance and implications of politics for NPD portfolio management are demonstrated.

New product development projects prioritization with Analytic Hierarchy Process in an automotive company

This work presents results from a research developed in a multinational automotive company. The main objective of this research was to prioritize New Product Development (NPD) projects. NPD projects prioritization is a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied to solve this decision-making problem. Mathematical Modeling, a research method of qualitative strategy was initially adopted. However, a mixed strategy was followed, as concepts of Case Study were included in the research. Therefore, that research did not the purpose to be exhaustive, that is, initially, one of research objectives was to model, with MCDM, a real case of NPD projects prioritization. Nevertheless, the decision-making model and results presented in this work can be considered by other companies, mainly from automotive sector.

Product Development Team Stability and New Product Advantage: The Role of Decision-Making Processes

Innovation scholars have long touted the value of cross-functional teams, and though firms have embraced a cross-functional design in their new product development (NPD) teams, these teams continue to face challenges. Stability in an NPD team may offer important advantages for decision making; however, its effectiveness as a structural coordination mechanism remains largely unexplored. Therefore, to offer insight into the value of NPD team stability, the authors develop a process-based model that examines the extent to which stability influences certain decision-making processes, which in turn influence new product advantage. They examine these relationships with a sample of cross-functional NPD project teams from 208 high-technology firms. The results reveal that the degree of stability in an NPD project team has a curvilinear relationship to team-level debate and decision-making comprehensiveness. In turn, whereas debate is positively related to decision comprehensiveness, decision comprehensiveness is positively related to new product advantage only at high levels. These curvilinear patterns shed light on anecdotal evidence that currently attributes success to both stable and unstable project teams.