Those companies may have more limited resources than their larger counterparts, but new product development is a crucial element for their continued growth and success. Stage-Gate is used to drive new products to market by leading firms worldwide. New product development is a cornerstone of any growing business. You either acquire product lines or business from others or you increase your market share with a competitive weapon developed through process improvements, such as Lean Manufacturing or people development. The only other way you can build sales volume is to develop new products.
Manufacturers face a host of problems.
In new product development, one of the keys is filtering through ideas to get to the good ones faster and drop the bad ideas sooner. That way, you don t spend a lot of money on bad ideas but focus proper resources on the good ones, Pheiff said. The sooner you get it done, the more cost-effective it is. One of the powers of Stage-Gate is that it forces you to look at ideas objectively, Pheiff said. The probability that you re going to be successful is much, much greater.