MANUFACTURING DEVELOPMENT
What is new product development ?
To create the next product in a company’s product line a design team goes through product development process steps. Starting with a product idea, the team moves through several stages to generate all the details and documents needed to get the product built. A NEW product development (NPD) process goes through the same steps, however as this product has not been developed by the team before, new risks and uncertainties are introduced, and often additional information is documented and shared with manufacturing.
Basic New Product Development Steps
There are five basic steps in a new product development process: Concept, Ideation, Design, Test, and Release.
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Concept — The concept step sets basic direction and boundaries for the entire development process by clarifying the type of product, the problem the product solves and the financial and technical goals to be achieved by the product.
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Ideation — During the ideation step the team brainstorms to discover some of the many ways a product can solve the problem and meet internal goals. Ideas are evaluated and the most promising are selected for further investigation.
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Design — It’s in this step that the execution of the “best” way to create and construct the product happens. Engineering details are generated to flesh out the high-level concepts from the ideation stage.
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Test — Testing verifies if the product meets the original goals or if additional refinement is needed.
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Release — Once testing has confirmed that the product solves the problem and will meet the company goals; it is ready to start the new product introduction (NPI) process and get the product built.