New-product-development performance evaluation: a product-complexity-basedmethodology

Companies are constantly striving to improve the performance of their new p roduct development activities and process. One approach adopted is that of comparing current practice with that of another company. A major problem wi th this is finding similar products which are not direct competitors. The p aper describes an attempt to produce an evaluation taxonomy and framework t o enable comparisons to be made between apparently dissimilar products, Thi s framework is based on a product's complexities (structural and market), i ts newness (to the company and the market) and related commercial constrain ts. By adopting this approach, it is hoped that 'like with like' comparison s may be made between products which are dissimilar in form. This would the n avoid the problems of competitive rivalry excluding comparative evaluatio n and assessment, The theoretical and practical development of various meas ures of product complexity, newness, commercial constraints and other influ encing factors is described. An assessment tool and methodology (ATM) is de scribed which uses these measures to evaluate the product development activ ities and process performance of a company. The various ways in which the A TM may be used are explained. Significant findings relating to success in p roduct development are shown from the initial results comparing successful product developments from a variety of companies.