An effective transition from the “fuzzy front end” to product

New Product Development (NPD) is traditionally viewed as stages which are joined by a series of transitions. While in many cases the overall process is thought of as seamless, in fact when actually executed, it becomes a series of throw-it-over-the-wall hand-offs. The result can be catastrophic, often resulting in losing critical tacit data, in turn resulting in the need to redesign, to cycle back, duplication of effort, schedule slip and needless added expense. This talk discusses the approach taken by the Direct Marketing Group, a division of Xerox Corporation, to address these issues. The key elements in our approach are the holistic involvement of the three key functional elementsmanufacturing, marketing and engineering in throughout the process, along with a dynamic compositional change in the characteristics of the NPD team as the product progresses from a so-called lightweight to a more heavyweight later on. The results, discussed here are: shorter decision paths, more predictable schedules, Improved time to market, fewer resets, Reduced NRE: Time = Money resulting in the capability to do more with less.