Rapid product development - an overview

The success of innovative engineering processes depend on short and iterative development cycles which offer the possibility of high quality products, cost-efficient on the market and thus to stand up to todayʹs tough competitive pressure. All these new methods are subsumed under the term “Rapid Product Development” (RPD). Research focuses attention not only on the products, but also their development process. By pursuing several variants with modern methods the optimal solution can be found. In order to guarantee the continuity of the whole product development process, organisation structure, process and resources have to be connected ideally. Enhancing the Simultaneous Engineering approach, RPD is an interdisciplinary evolutionary methodology to combine all influences of an engineering process to an iterative product development.