Competing by Design: Creating Value and Market Advantage in New Product Development

This step-by-step, hands-on guide explains how to reduce time to market for new products and effectively meet customer's needs. Demonstrates how to take advantage of the latest development tools and product design, use such proven techniques as robust design and QFD and assess and select the appropriate combination of tools, methodologies and strategies.

Competing by Design Every Year, thousands of new products flood the marketplace. Yet, according to recent studies, only a small fraction of these new entries live to see any bottom line profits. In today’s environment, this costly process can quickly corrode a company’s ability to consistently outperform the competition. Competing by Design shows managers how to take the guesswork and inefficiencies out of designing, developing, and producing critical new products. Led by companies such as Rubbermaid and Chrysler, innovative organizations are capturing entire markets by carefully designing every aspect of their new product development process. In Competing by Design, you’ll see all of the critical strategies, techniques, tools, and technologies that your company needs to excel in product development. Erhorn and Stark provide practical methods and action steps for improvement that you can start using today. You’ll see how to take advantage of the latest product design and development tools; use proven methods for gaining the most out of concurrent engineering, design for manufacturability, quality function deployment, and robust design; and evaluate and select the appropriate mix of tools and techniques for your company. Step-by-step guidelines are included along with seasoned advice and examples from successful companies as well as from firms that pursued faulty strategies. Competing by Design gives you a detailed, practical way to improve your knowledge of state-of-the-art new product development and improve your company’s performance in this vital area.