PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES IN SMALL AND MIDDLE-SIZED ENTERPRISES - IDENTIFICATION AND ELIMINATION OF INEFFICIENCY CAUSED BY PRODUCT VARIETY

DS 68-1: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 11), Impacting Society through Engineering Design, Vol. 1: Design Processes, Lyngby/Copenhagen, Denmark, 15.-19.08.2011

Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Clarkson, P.J.
Author: Eben, Katharina G. M.; Helten, Katharina; Lindemann, Udo
Series: ICED
Section: Design Processes
Page(s): 101-112

Abstract

Competiveness of small and middle-sized enterprises (SME) represents recognizing customer needs and being able to efficiently react to it. As SMEs face a limitation of their resources, it is crucial to monitor the strategy of product variety management and the interplay of project work and day-to-day business. This paper aims to achieve the former by identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in product development processes. Thus, a procedure is introduced to reduce development effort by successfully handling the necessary product variety. Further goals are to avoid sources of inefficiency – to improve the interplay between development process and everyday work – and to gain consciousness about how the processes are lived within the enterprise and how product variety impacts on the day-to-day-business.

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