Balanced matrix structure and new product development process at Texas Instruments Materials and Controls Division

• Published in: R & D management Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 121 - 132
• Main Authors: Bernasco, Wilma, De Weerd-Nederhof, Petra C., Tillema, Harry, Boer, Harry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 01.04.1999; Basil Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Case studies; Organizational structure; Product development; Semiconductors; Time to market; Netherlands
• ISSN: 0033-6807; 1467-9310
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-9310.00123

Texas Instruments is a global player in the semiconductor business. One of its divisions is Materials and Controls (M&C), with European headquarters in Almelo, the Netherlands. All the company's products are customer-specific. Recently, product life cycles started to shorten. This required the company to look deeply into its time-to-market and, as its products are engineered to order, particularly new product development (NPD) lead time. The company soon realized that its traditional functional hierarchy would not allow a radical reduction of time-to-market. In 1995 it was therefore decided to change from the functional structure to a balanced matrix structure and to adopt a new project management procedure called the new product development process - NPDP, in order to speed up NPD projects by a factor two. The design and implementation of, and the company's experience with, the new NPD organization and procedure and the contribution of the new situation to the company's performance in the market place are presented. Based on that, lessons are drawn for the theory and practice of NPD management.