Two Misunderstanding in New Product Development

A common issue in advancing new product development is that when the schedule is tight, risks are exposed and creating the situation which the management resources (people, things, money) are thrown more than expected at the beginning of product development planning. The leading cause is considered to be a misunderstanding of the development structure and a misunderstanding of schedule creation.

Specific ways to improve the two misunderstandings

At the beginning of product development, you might be thinking like, “I would not make closeout departure like before, I want to take the opinions of the people around and proceeding efficiently.” However, as the schedule progresses, there is more work need to be done, and complaint processing in the previous development overlaps: then you can realize that similar situations are encountered at a similar timing.

Things that you could be thinking at this stage are, “why I am repeating things” “I wish there would be no unpleasant complaint processing at such a time” ” Why no one will be responsible, and such a disgusting thing always come to me?” “why I’m out of luck?”  and so and so, which I’m sure you’ll have more or less in your heart.  Although having these bitter experiences, you may be wondering why you cannot make plan such a development that doesn’t keep making the same mistakes. 

I often hear that a company’s superiors say, “Our employees are fascinating. Although We have problems at the stage when the schedule is tight, they have the power to make it on time.” I would say that such bosses often cannot see through the essence of the problem. The reason why? The answer is that because such cases use a lot of unnecessary people, supplies and money to finish the rest of the imminent schedule. Indeed, it can be done by inputting a large number of people, goods, and money to finish it, but we have not eliminated the root of the problem. The key is that did you or did not finish it with securing the QCD (Quality, Cost & Delivery (schedule)) which planned at the beginning of development. In most cases likely, C increase and Q decrease for strictly adhere to D (schedule). In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that It sacrifice Q and C to protect D. Therefore, the original purpose of securing QCD for R & D and product development when creating a development plan replace its reason like “We must not annoy customers” to “We must complete it” when the schedule got tight. Then the development would be completed on a schedule that is as planned or a little late, but Products shipped in mass production under these circumstances could have many claims.

I have been discussing the reasons above, when the schedule is tight, the problem is exposed, and “finishing it” become the lesson. However, it cannot be used in subsequent product development. That is because the fundamental problem of avoiding the risks exposed after the schedule got squeezed is that “the development plan does not carry out a quantitative risk assessment of the entire development with a goal in mind.” Or regarding the market, it is because there are dragging lousy habit such as “even you have to stick to your schedule, then anyway the sales force will somehow solve it.” For improving these two misunderstandings, it is necessary to visualize and quantify in the early stage of development, and to find a solution in advance depending on the depth of the problem.

We provide RCOM (Risk Control Method) as a method that can solve it automatically to some extent.