Most people without experience in product development are
astounded by how much time and money are required to develop a new product. The
reality is that very few products can be developed in less than 1 year, many
require 3 to 5 years, and some take as long as 10 years. The cost of product
development is roughly proportional to the number of people on the project team
and to the duration of the project. In addition to expenses for development
effort, a firm will almost always have to make some investment in the tooling
and equipment required for production.
Developing great products is hard. Few companies are highly
successful more than half the time. These odds present a significant challenge
for a product development team. Some of the characteristics that make product
development challenging are:
The Challenges of Product Development
1. Trade-offs
An airplane can be made lighter, but this action will
probably increase manufacturing cost. One of the most difficult aspects of
product development is recognizing, understanding, and managing such trade-offs
in a way that maximizes the success of the product.
2. Dynamics
Technologies improve, customer preferences
evolve, competitors introduce new products, and the macroeconomic environment
shifts. Decision making in an environment of constant change is a formidable
task.
3. Details
The choice between using screws or snap-fits on the
enclosure of a computer can have economic implications of millions of dollars.
Developing a product of even modest complexity may require thousands of such
decisions.
4. Time pressure
Any one of these difficulties would be
easily manageable by itself given plenty of time, but product development
decisions must usually be made quickly and without complete information.
5. Economics
Developing, producing, and marketing a new
product requires a large investment. To earn a reasonable return on this
investment, the resulting product must be both appealing to customers and
relatively inexpensive to produce.
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