INTRODUCTION-
Successful innovation has become a key driver for revenue growth, competitive margins and, in
some cases, even for survival. The ability to bring innovation to the market quickly, efficiently
and ahead of competition is becoming increasingly important. An efficient product launch
requires integration and coordination among multiple functional areas, including product design,
procurement, planning, manufacturing, sales and marketing. In addition, as organizations
increasingly leverage core capabilities of other companies, innovation has to be delivered
through virtual networks, working with partners in a collaborative environment in order to bring
products and services to the market faster, smarter and cheaper. Consequently, organizations need
to integrate itself internally and also externally with suppliers and customers, creating end- to-
end supply chain processes and capabilities which impose differences on product and customer
requirements.
The innovation as a business model is made up of all decisions that a company makes including
six main elements, namely: who, what, when, where, why and how much a company needs to
provide its goods & services and receive value for its effort. Some of the changes in business,
that have the potential to impact a new product development (NPD) include:
1. Increased levels of competition
2. Rapidly changing market environments
3. Higher rates of technical obsolescence and
4. Shorter product life cycles. Moreover, the importance of being the first on the market is
discussed extensively in various sources. Besides the instinctive idea of being the first, other
measurable benefits are possible for those that get on the market sooner with innovative products
and services.
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
New product development is one of the most important value-creating processes in every
industry. New products create interest, excitement and new business opportunities by providing
customers with better, more convenient or lower priced ways to fulfil their needs. Many voices
believe that distributors and suppliers working together as allies can both reduce the costs of
product development and introduction and, more importantly, develop more and better products
than those that are being produced today.
If the world was stable, there would be no need to change business operation and methods, or to
understand what has changed and what works well. However, firms operate in dynamic
environments, not stable ones. In response, management processes must also change over time so
that firms can remain effective and profitable through this changing situation.
Some of the changes in business with the potential to impact the ways in which new product
development (NPD) is practiced and managed include: 1. Increased levels of competition; 2.
Rapidly changing market environments; 3. Higher rates of technical obsolescence; 4. Shorter
product life cycles. A primary impact of these environmental changes is to implement changes
which help speed products through development, and improve process efficiency and overall
NPD effectiveness.
The Model of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) wants to create
and disseminate knowledge about managing and improving new product development. Best
research practices wish to:
1. Determine the current status of product development practices and performance;
2. Understand how product development has changed from five years ago;
3. Determine whether differences exist in NPD practice or performance across industry
segments; - investigate process and product development tools which differentiate the
success on product development.
The three parts of the innovation process: fuzzy front end (FFE), new product development
(NPD), and commercialization.
AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
While automakers tend to rely more heavily on outsourcing, deficits exist in the successful
delivery of new product launch projects regarding launch time, launch costs, product and process
quality. As launch collaboration requires standardized but also flexible processes with hundreds
of partnering organizations, deficits exist in implementing support tools for more efficient project
coordination and for the monitoring of project- and product maturity levels.
Firms are recognizing the strategic performance potential that collaborative relationship with
suppliers can provide. Those companies that invest in their technological processes introduce
products with more value added and gain a well position on the market. A further result was the
establishment of a mutual understanding and illustration of a launch and change-over
management framework that could be used for the quantitative analysis.
Product creation processes:
1. Pre-series: comprises the test of the serial tools and machinery at the suppliers plant.
2. Null series: contains the production tests at the suppliers plant. Usually, three rounds
of production tests are conducted. Production tests are often referred to as Try Outs.
3. Production ramp up: represents the timeframe from the start of production (SOP) until
it has reached the full production capacities. Practitioners revealed also product
development processes and logistical processes, particularly material scheduling and
management, demand and capacity management, inventory management, and transport
planning.
The concept of performance measurement was soon picked up and referred to as a key
performance indicator (KPI). Relevant performance measures regarding launch projects are
time schedule, cost measures and product performance characteristics (such as quality,
weight, or size).
In this study the following three outcome dimensions as relational outcomes: overall launch
time, overall launch costs, products and processes launch quality. In todays competitive
environment, time is one of the most distinct resources for competitive advantage and,
meanwhile, it is managed consequently and effectively as companies manage costs, quality,
or inventory.
Today, companies in every part of the world compete with flexible manufacturing and rapid-
response systems, expanding variety and increasing innovation. Manufacturer has to balance
costly technological innovativeness of car models with competitive prices on the market
while the supplier must succeed in allocating his resources most effectively in order to be
able to offer the largest value and the latest innovation for the best price possible. Automotive
industry at a globalized level demands standardized workflows and risk analysis as
prerequisites for robust launch processes.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT ON NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND NEW
PRODUCT LAUNCH IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Project Management represents the combination between know-how, abilities, instruments and
projects techniques in order to fulfil its requirements.
New Product Development Management-
We need to change different levels, including systems, practices and philosophies. Each company
needs to learn to "work for us."
Several priorities:
1. We need to develop a common vision of the value created by disseminating the
information through all the participants to the value chain.
2. We must agree on what type of information can be disseminated deliberately and what
information is secret .
3. We need to develop a frame, a schedule that must be approved in industry for the data
that has to be standardized.
4. Companies must be prepared to exchange the basic standards, in fact the data, freely or in
return to an available rate of costs recovery. Common standards will help you minimize
the costs of sharing data.
5. Once we have accepted that the value doesnt mean rude information, but analytical
capabilities linked to it, we should not regard data sharing as a revenue engine.
6. Security controls must be placed on each information platform.
NEW GEARBOX LAUNCH PROJECT
The project must meet the increased demands posed by the client but it should be also able to
fold the production and the groups policy. It is a 6-speed gearbox which addresses to low
consumption engines. By counting the success of a new product launch we measure the
following factors: time, cost and quality.
Project processes are: -
1. The Start process: define and authorize the project or the project phase.
2. The Planning process: define, set goals, and all action plans necessary to achieve the
objectives for which the project was undertaken.
3. The Implementation process includes humans and other sources to carry out the
management plan.
4. The Monitoring and Controlling processes refer to identifying changes in the
management plan and collect the further decisions to be taken.
5. Project Closure.
The project is included in Dacias Renault Mechanical Department.
NEW PROJECT PERFORMANCE AXES:
1. Apply Renault production standards in design and manufacturing.
2. Use industrial network in Romania (30% of investment)
3. Capitalize the best practices used in all Renault plants that are producing gear boxes
(France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Chile)
4. Mine engineering-design team dedicated to achieving project objectives
5. 120 Romanian engineers and technicians
6. 25 French engineers
7. Support for all product-process experts from Renault.
STATEMENT OF WORK (SOW)
PROJECT OBJECTIVES:
"Making an engine with a low fuel consumption gearbox
Deliverables:
1. Market surveys
2. Technical Research
3. Final product
Benchmarking:
1. Study of domestic and international car market
2. Technical & Economic Evaluation of the new product
3. Concept development
4. Build a prototype
5. Achieving Zero series and developing the process
6. Product manufacturing in series
7. Study the impact on market.
Technical requirements:
1. The product must be enrolled in technical enforced norms
2. It must be reliable
3. The implementation should be as simple as possible.
Constraints:
1. Budget surpluses must not exceed 2.5% of total budget
2. Price for customer should be 20% lower than competitions price
3. Project should not last more than 2.5 years
4. Overtime allocation should not exceed 3% of the assigned number.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Rather than thinking a process as some number of discrete phases, look for the bigger picture of
a large, evolving, general-purpose process, which we break up into steps partly for our benefit in
presenting the story about new product activities. New product processes essentially turns an
opportunity (a real start) into a profit flow (a real finish). It begins with something that is not a
product (the opportunity) and ends up with another thing that is not a product (the profit).
The basics stages are:
Phase 1: Opportunity Identification: Marketing planning; Corporate planning Opportunity
analysis
Phase 2: Concept generation: Idea screening; Concept statement
Phase 3: Concept/project evaluation: Concept testing; Concept screening; Protocol concept
Phase 4: Development: Allocate resources; Prototype concept; Batch concept; Process concept;
Piloting concept; Comprehensive business analysis
Phases 5: Launch/Commercialization: Test the market; Evaluate the market; Make a public
announcement; Assess concept success
For us WBS is a tree structure that captures all project activities in an organized manner. Large,
complex organized and understood projects are divided into pieces of increasingly smaller size
until they become a collection of "work packages" which may include a set number of tasks.
CONCLUSIONS:
Compared with previous similar projects, the present one reveals a number of factors that gives a
higher score of excellence:
A more assertive management involvement
A more efficient use of resources in order to obtain information (benchmarking studies,
and comparison with competitors achievements, reference projects)
An effective communication to all the persons involved for a better understanding of the
objectives
Creating an atmosphere within the team in order to stimulate constructive criticism
Better training, including a project manager
Better understanding of customer needs, the more efficient feed-back come from the final
customers
Defining an employee incentive scheme
Assess the degree of achieving the objectives.
