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New Product Development Process Models

Conference Paper · September 2021

DOI: 10.1109/ICECEM54757.2021.00054

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 New Product Development Process Models
Chenggang Yin * Wenxia Zhang
College of Engineering College of Engineering,
China Agricultural University China Agricultural University
Beijing, China Beijing, China
*
Corresponding author: cgyin@cau.edu.cn S20193071151@cau.edu.cn

Abstract--New product development process significantly maturity, management strategies, business goals, policies,
influences performance of product design and development culture and beliefs, and so on. In the real world situation,
system. Many researchers and practitioners established different manufacturing enterprises usually employ or revise existing
new product development process models based on various product development processes, with respect to the real world
knowledge background and practical experiences. While, there is operation environment, policies and regulations, etc.
lack of literature to comprehensively analyze and discuss distinct
new product development processes. This research studied This paper is organized as follows: Section 1 introduces
different new product development processes and their typical background of this research; Section 2 illustrates the research
features from engineering design perspectives. This paper motivation and scope; Section 3 discusses various new product
presented various models of new product development process, development process models, features and impact factors;
analyzed impacting factors to the performance of product Section 4 concludes the paper and proposes future research.
development systems, commented both advantages and
shortcomings in the real world operation environment. Results II. RESEARCH MOTIVATION AND SCOPE
from this research would be beneficial to those researchers, Research motivation comes from an investigation on an
practitioner and managerial personnel in engineering enterprises. agricultural equipment manufacturer located in Shandong
province in north China (the name of the company is
Key words-- New product development process; Sequential
anonymous for security reasons). Investigation results showed
engineering; Concurrent engineering; Parallel engineering;
Hierarchical engineering; V-type Engineering; Reverse
that the technical manager has no clear understanding about the
engineering architecture of the new product development process used in
their company. Further broader survey revealed that most
I. INTRODUCTION manufacturers apply various new product development process
models that are mainly borrowed from similar companies.
New product development process (NPDP) is a sequence of
Therefore, an obvious fact is that most small and medium size
stages and activities that an enterprise employs to conceive,
enterprises (SMSEs) in China are lack of understanding of the
design, manufacture and commercialize a product [1]. Taking
concept of new product development processes that are actually
engineered products for example, the development process
extremely important to maintain sustainable development. The
includes different stages, such as product planning, concept
owners of these manufacturing companies expressed that they
design, detail design, manufacture, test and improvement,
are willing to study and implement appropriate new product
production, and so forth [2]. Each stage and design missions of
development process in their companies.
the stage are well defined with aim to achieving both fairness
and efficiency. Each stage completes their work on due time The research intent is to analyze various new product
and delivers to the next stage, which forms traditional forward development processes and their typical features influencing
engineering method. system performance. Focusing on specified purpose, this paper
introduces different models of new product development
New product development success criteria are normally
process, analyzes architecture of such models, discusses both
referred to three indicators, i.e. time, cost and quality [3]. For
advantages and shortcomings involved in these models. In
most for-profit enterprises, they try to produce better products
addition, both technical and social factors are discussed, which
by a lower cost in a shorter time, in order to enhance products’
provides potential opportunities of applying various
competitiveness in the market. With aim to achieving above
management interventions to the operation systems. As a result,
objectives, enterprises focus on optimizing two primary
this paper may be beneficial to researchers, engineers and
aspects: (1) improving technology and expertise, like
managerial personnel in manufacturing enterprises.
innovative materials, design method and manufacturing
process, which are beyond the scope of this research; and (2) III. DISTINCT MODELS OF NEW PRODUCT
improving the performance of new product development DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
processes, which are exclusively highlighted and discussed in
this paper. New product development process models are explicit
flow-charts that describe the process about how a product is
New product development process is gradually evolved produced. It includes a series of stages, where functional teams
from practice in product design and development activities, are allocated to carry out specific design activities. The
therefore the architecture of new product development process definition of both stages and design tasks varies with respect
is significantly influenced by many factors, such as technology to the real world operation requirements. In new product
development process, one stage completes its design mission (PLC) [7]. Product iteration along such cycles is an effective
on due time and proceeds to the next stage, which is the and efficient way to maintain business sustainable
original pattern of sequential engineering. development.
While, in order to win the challenging market, B. Stage-Gate System (SGS)
manufacturing companies, especially those small and medium Robert Cooper, as one of pioneers in product design and
size enterprises, have to continuously improve the development community, established stage-gate system model.
performance of their product development process from three The stage-gate system is derived from sequential engineering,
dimensions, i.e. time, cost and quality. As a result, various new with series of check points following each stage [8]. In the real
product development processes arise to meet such world situation, different companies employ different versions
requirements [4]. On the other hand, fast development of of stage-gate systems that include various stages. Fig. 2
cutting-edge science and technologies, such as information demonstrates one version of the stage-gate system [9].
technology (IT) and advanced design and manufacturing
technology make them possible. Various new product
development processes bring advantages and new challenges
at the same time.
This section introduces seven new product development
process (NPDP) models. They are sequential engineering (SE),
stage-gate system (SGS), concurrent engineering (CE),
parallel engineering (PE), hierarchical engineering (HE), Figure 2. Stage-gate system
V-type engineering (VE) and reverse engineering (RE).
Discussion and comments are presented after each model. The purpose of check point is to review the design work
A. Sequential Engineering (SE) produced by each stage, and therefore improve design quality
and reduce design iteration [10, 11]. In the real world situation,
Fig. 1 demonstrates a sequential engineering model, which the setting of check points’ function is a key issue. Early
includes six stages, i.e. product planning, concept design, version of stage-gate system has only two-decision mode: “go”
detail design, manufacture, test and improvement and or “kill”. That is, approved design package proceeds to the
production [1]. Functional teams with specific knowledge and next stage; on the contrary, unqualified design project
expertise are deployed to these stages to undertake specified permanently terminates [12]. In later version of the stage-gate
work missions, which ensures high level of productivity. system, one more flexible choice is added, that is “rework”
decision. The “rework” choice is issued to those projects with
correctable errors, which effectively avoids excessively waste
of budget.
Stage-gate systems are broadly employed in various types
of enterprise, where both stages and check points are carefully
defined and executed according to specific operation
Figure 1. Sequential engineering environment. However, some still criticize the system shows
bureaucratic nature through their experiences. It is an art about
Applying sequential engineering, product design package how to make good use of the check points in the real world
sequentially passes through each stage following the arrows operational environment.
direction in Fig. 1 [5]. That is, upstream work team completes
their design work on due time and then delivers to downstream C. Concurrent Engineering (CE)
teams for continuing the rest of design tasks. Each team carries Concurrent engineering concept is derived and developed
on their design work within predetermined design mission, from sequential engineering [13], which allows two or more
which enables sufficient degree of freedom (DOF) in design design activities overlap in particular sections along time
work. Therefore, sequential engineering is performing well in dimension. That is, downstream team can start work before
developing innovative products. upstream team completes their design work [14]. Fig. 3
Sequential engineering involves limitations in the real illustrates a concurrent engineering model (in dash line box).
world operation situation. For example: (1) each team works
in relatively independent environment, which leads to low
efficiency in communicating design information within teams;
(2) design iteration across stages produces heavily impact to
system performance [6]; (3) sequential engineering pattern
more likely results in development cycle extension although
deadlines of each stage is predetermined. While, sequential
engineering is still a popular and useful product development
method for manufacturing enterprises.
Figure 3. Concurrent engineering
The dashed arrow in Fig. 1 connects the last and the first
stages, which forms the basic concept of product life cycle Concurrent engineering is being broadly employed in
various manufacturing companies. It produces significant
advantages within operation system: (1) design information
exchange and communication can happen in overlapped
sections, which effectively increase system performance [15];
(2) concurrent engineering enables forward and backward
design modes, e.g. design for manufacture (DFM) method
considers manufacture suitability early in design stage; (3)
rework across stages could be converted to internal iteration
within overlapped area, which decreases system complexity; Figure 5. Hierarchical engineering
and (4) concurrent engineering potentially shortens product
development cycle [16]. Hierarchical engineering is suitable for matured products
Concurrent engineering model may bring challenges in to carry out mass production. For example, a bicycle is divided
operation system as well. Overlapped activities lead to unclear into four assembly units: tire, body, saddle and handlebar, the
mission boundary and performance measurement. Design body is further divided into fender, pedals and chains [25]. The
stages start work with incomplete information and fuzzy bicycle is finally decomposed into series of ground-level
beginning, which increases complexity of operation system individual parts, which forms bicycle product supply chain
and introduces more uncertainties and reworks into the system. Hierarchical engineering considers both design
complicated design systems [17]. analysis and product synthesis processes, which ensures high
efficiency of new product development process.
D. Parallel Engineering (PE)
F. V-type Engineering (VE)
Parallel engineering is also recognized as module-based
design (MBD) in some literature [18], where different design V-type engineering is widely used in software product
modules proceed in an absolutely parallel way [19]. It is the development process [26]. Fig. 6 demonstrates a V-type
extreme situation of concurrent engineering where all design engineering model, which comprises of design process (on left
tasks overlap together. Fig. 4 displays a parallel engineering section) and verification process (on right section) [27].
model (in dash line box).

Figure 4. Parallel engineering Figure 6. V-type engineering

Parallel engineering is suitable for those projects with The design process includes requirements analysis,
simple structure and clear boundary between design modules. specifications, architecture design, detail design and coding.
Parallel engineering brings many potential benefits, such as The verification process includes a series of test stages that
development cycle reduction, system productivity increasing verify design results. Both design and verification processes
[20, 21]. While, there are some preconditions for applying are linked by dual-way arrows, which implies two processes
parallel engineering: (1) design modules are independent with work in a collaborative pattern [28]. V-type engineering
each other; (2) coupling relationship among modules is not ensures any errors can be detected timely [29], and feedback to
allowed; and (3) system interface are well defined and corresponding design phases simultaneously [30].
managed. G. Reverse Engineering (RE)
E. Hierarchical Engineering (HE) Reverse engineering operates in a reverse direction
Hierarchical engineering includes multiple layers of comparing with forward engineering. Fast development of
parallel engineering. In the hierarchical engineering model, a measurement technology and information processing makes
product is firstly decomposed into a series of assembly units, reverse engineering feasible and efficient. Reverse engineering
and these assembly units are further divided into lower level of is widely used in developing both software and hardware
components [22, 23]. Following this pattern, one product is products [31, 32]. This paper focuses on applying reverse
eventually decomposed into many groups of individual parts, engineering in hardware product development. Fig. 7 displays
which can be considered as the reverse way of supply chain a reverse engineering model.
system (SCS). Fig. 5 displays a typical hierarchical
engineering model [24].
Figure 7. Reverse engineering
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