Article Investigates Best Practices in New Product Development

PRNewswire
June 22, 2011

A new paper offering insight on how to optimize research and development efficiency through strategic operational excellence by Yair Holtzman, a tax director at WTP Advisors, could impact the way many R&D companies plan for new product development.

The article, "Strategic research and development: it is more than just getting the next product to market," appears in the Volume 30 issue 1 (2011) of the Journal of Management Development.

Hailed by the publisher for its creativity in linking operational excellence and operations management themes with developing new products and services and the work of R&D, this article stemmed from interviews and discussions with CEOs, vice presidents, and director level engineers and scientists over the past several years who demonstrated great interest in understanding why their companies' R&D efforts fall short of target so many times.

Holtzman, who is also a leader in WTP's Business Advisory Services division, concludes that companies must embrace a new philosophy in developing a new product: they must weed out engineering inefficiencies in research and development from the onset, and add value early in the R&D process in order to succeed in the current economic climate.

This pivots sharply from current industry norms. Typically, in their ongoing desire to become more efficient, many R&D organizations largely focus on reducing administrative inefficiencies such as burdensome approval processes, lack of information, and meetings that are unproductive or unnecessary. Yet they tend to overlook the bigger issue of engineering inefficiencies, which is caused by problems such as shifting design requirements, poor integration of design components, and post-production design changes.

"Although engineering and R&D inefficiencies consume substantial time and resources – and have a much bigger impact on the bottom line – they are often ignored because they are more complex and challenging to address. And in some cases, are not even recognized as a problem," says Holtzman.
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