| New product development (NPD) is the most important factor for business success or failure in many industries. One of the most effective tools to improve management of NPD is simulation modeling. This dissertation develops a method of computer simulation, which could be used as a tool for NPD process planning by incorporating it into organizational models and procedures. This dissertation uses SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) for Windows software for statistical analysis of data on large samples of NPD teams. The team structure and dynamics of project are based on lifecycle model of typical stages of NPD process. The most essential of structural parameters are team size, number of subgroups and professional and functional diversification.; The simulation system AweSim is used as a tool for forecasting of the NPD processes. Two approaches, Integrated Product Development (IPD) and traditional Sequential Product Development (SPD), are simulated. The simulation model compares SPD with IPD by several parameters. The model framework in both SPD and IPD includes seven stages of NPD process: (1) Concept, (2) Feasibility Study, (3) Definition, (4) Design and Development, (5) Manufacture, (6) Deployment, and (7) Operation. This study represents the options of the NPD process by experimenting with the number of vertically integrated or horizontally diversified teams within bottlenecked stages to increase the efficiency.; The research explores the cases of a team working on several similar products and a team developing one unique product/system. First case studies a stream of NPD projects processed by one multifunctional team in a major telecommunications company. The second case of the defense system design is presented to illustrate the application to a single project. The project leaders of both NPD teams it case studies have ascertained that the validity of the models is satisfactory.; The results of this study provide evaluations of different team configurations with time estimates to complete the project with given resources for NPD. They might be used as input for management decisions and for planning and scheduling of human and material resources. |
