A New Product Development Model for SMEs: Introducing Agility to the Plan-Driven Concurrent Product Development Approach

In order to survive in today’s highly competitive global market, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have had to transition from sequential to concurrent product development, which significantly shortens development cycles, reduces costs, and ensures high product quality. Despite its many bene...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSustainability Vol. 13; no. 21; p. 12159
Main Authors Žužek, Tena, Gosar, Žiga, Kušar, Janez, Berlec, Tomaž
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.11.2021
Subjects
Changing environments
Collaboration
Competitive advantage
Efficiency
Flexibility
Global marketing
Information sharing
Literature reviews
Manufacturing
Planning
Problem solving
Product development
Product life cycle
Project management
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
Small business
Software development
Software industry
Success
Sustainability
Wiring harnesses
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Summary:In order to survive in today’s highly competitive global market, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have had to transition from sequential to concurrent product development, which significantly shortens development cycles, reduces costs, and ensures high product quality. Despite its many benefits, concurrent product development is still based on detailed upfront planning and cannot address the challenges related to today’s ever-growing uncertainty, constantly changing environment, and unstable requirements. A potential solution to this problem could be in more flexible and value-driven agile project management (APM) approaches, typical of software development. In this paper, we propose a new product development model specifically appropriate for SMEs that combines concurrent product development principles with APM elements. It is designed as a loop of five repetitive steps (macroplan, microplan, iteration activities, review, and retrospective) that are being executed within individual concurrent development loops. The application of the model is presented on a real case example of process development and small batch manufacture of a complex wiring harness. The study reveals many benefits of the proposed model, such as improved communication, faster detection of discrepancies, more effective problem solving, and greater flexibility. A positive impact on project success is also observed.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su132112159