Industrial Metrology Product Development: Best Practices and Success Factors

Abstract: Innovation is extremely important for companies to gain and sustain competitive advantage in the modern business environment. Nowadays ability to adapt and evolve is crucial for any company willing to survive. The key to effective adaption and evolvement is innovation. New products are commonly seen as an output of innovation whereas new product development process is considered to be a sub-process of innovation.  The thesis focuses on development of a new product in the company the author has been working for. It aims at assessing the methods that the company is employing to develop new products. The goal is to determine the flaws in the new product development process of the company and the negative effects on performance and output the flaws have.  The thesis describes the generic new product development process, a certain form of which is used by majority of the companies involved in new product development. It contains a narrative literature review of articles documenting research in the field of best practices of new product development. It also reviews studies of critical factors of new product success, which separate the best performing companies from the others.  The thesis uses the best practice research and success factors studies as a reference point to assess the methods and evaluate the process that the company used to develop the product the thesis is focused on. The thesis also describes the market and the competition that the company is facing. In the end it gives a number of recommendations. The company can use the results as guidelines for improvement.