New Product Development Process - How to speed up?

Here are some ideas that have worked out for us in speeding up our new product development process. Note that some of these ideas increase cost and others increase risk. However for many projects, the biggest cost is the cost of the project delay.

Make sure the development engineers have spare capacity

Break new product development process into small tasks

Start doing a development task as soon as enough information, material and parts are available for meaningful work to take place

Reuse technology and product modules as far as possible

Separate out product development tasks from technology development tasks

Use rapid prototyping techniques

They convey the full impact of the product to all the people involved. Quite a few people are unable to visualize the finished product from the CAD drawings or even the solid model.

Test Early

Many tests can be performed or approximated in the lab. See the article Quick free product testing for Environmental and ESD issues

Get prototypes in the hand of users as soon as possible

Have the development team in one location