Revitalising new process development in the UK fine chemicals industry

Reports on one of the key developments made to date on a three-year EPSRC I MI research project in the fine chemicals industry. The project, Batch Rout e Innovative Technology: Evaluation and Selection Techniques (BRITEST), beg an in late 1997 with the aint to research new methods to deliver substantia l benefits associated with new product development The project will deliver a methodology, models and a suite of decision support tools sustaining and improving the new product development process, enabling novel technical so lutions to be developed more in line with, and evaluated more appropriately against, the business strategy and market characteristics. The specific de liverable presented in this paper is an action research-derived framework t hat integrates the detailed processes, information requirements and decisio n making as a model of good practice for new product (or process) developme nt (NPD) in the fine chemicals industry.