Developing+new+products

New product development methods used by industry

For anyone engaged in technology commercialization it is important to understand how companies develop new products, so that technology and know-how can be efficiently transferred or acquired. This includes understanding and reacting to industry new product development cycles, and gaining experience in how industry integrates development and production in practice.

Some countries, especially those in transition from a strongly centralized research system, face the problem of having "orphan prototypes." These are prototypes of products which have been developed with going through the proof of concept phase and without conducting any market intelligence to see if there is a market for the product, if there are competing products and the market, or if the proposed product has features which will make it competitive with existing products. Grant funding may be used to evaluate these orphan prototypes and identify those with potential only.

Technology roadmaps also have a role in new product development.

Conditional Qualifier: [What is this?]
If new products and services are being developed in developing countries and emerging markets, different methods may be used and more emphasis placed on reverse/frugal innovation and inclusive innovation.

===StageGate™ methods, the fuzzy front end of technology new product development, assessing risks and rewards, identifying and overcoming barriers. ===

A stage-gate model for new product development (NPD) is a conceptual and operational road map for moving a new project from idea to launch - a blueprint for managing the new-product process to improve effectiveness and efficiency. The traditional Stage-Gate process has five stages and five gates. The stages are:
 * 1) Preliminary assessment of ideas
 * 2) Build a Business Case for a new product or service
 * 3) Development
 * 4) Testing and Validation
 * 5) Product launch

StageGate™ methods


 The stage gate model refers to the use of funnel tools in decision making when dealing with new product development. “Gates” or decision points are placed at places in the product development process that are most beneficial to making decisions regarding continuance of product development. These production areas between the gates are idea generation, establishment of feasibility, development of capability, testing and validation and product launch. At the conclusion of each of these areas of development of a new product, it is the responsibility of senior management to make a decision as to whether or not the product should continue to be developed. The passing of gate to gate can be accomplished either formally, with some sort of documentation, or informally, decided upon based on the preferences and culture of the organization.

The stage-gate model for new product development can be adapted to open innovation by accessing external ideas. intellectual property (IP), and other external resources at any stage of the development process. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

Example of the process for a Bio-fuels development project.


<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gates provide various points where an assessment of the quality takes place. It includes three main issues:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Quality of execution: Has the previous step been executed in a quality fashion?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Business rationale: Does the project continue to look like an attractive idea from an economic and business perspective?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Action plan: Is the proposed action plan and the requested resources reasonable and sound.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A gate meeting can lead to four results: go, kill, hold, recycle.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Gates have a common structure and consist of three main elements:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Deliverables: What the project manager and team deliver to the decision point.These deliverables are decided at the output of the previous gate,and are based on a standard menu of deliverables for each gate.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Criteria: Questions or metrics on which the project is judged in order to make the Go/Kill/Hold/Recycle and prioritization decision.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Outputs: Results of the gate review -a decision (Go/Kill/Hold/Recycle),along with an approved action plan for the next gate, and a list of deliverables and date for the next gate.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Benefits of using Stage-Gate model are:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Accelerates speed-to-market.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Increases likelihood of product success.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Introduces discipline into on ordinarily chaotic process.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reduces re-work.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Achieves efficient and effective allocation of scarce resources.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The main problem with the stage-gate process is the potential for structural organization to interfere with creativity. Some experts believe that overkill of structure can cause creativity and customization to be put on the back burner of importance in an organization.

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 * Optimizing the Stage Gate Process - Part 1**

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 * Optimizing the Stage Gate Process - Part 2**

[|http://www.stage-gate.eu/stage-gate-model.asp]
 * Stage-Gate® models: the good and bad ones**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Parts of the above text only has been adapted from Wikipedia [] which provide much more detail on each of the development stages. Shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0[| http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/] as is this Handbook.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Stage-Gate® is a registered trademark. In Europe, the owners are Jens Arleth, [|Stage-Gate.EU] and Robert G. Cooper, [|Product Development Institute Inc]. In Canada and USA, the owner is Product Development Institute Inc.