One of the most difficult choices in New Product Development is in deciding what products to develop !
Lot’s of us watch “Dragons Den” on TV and it’s pretty obvious some of the budding entrepreneurs believe they have a great idea but have never even considered asking their customers or potential customers what they think.
To avoid wasting millions of dollars on products no one wants it is essential to listen to the Voice Of the Customer. (VOC)
Companies involved in New Product Development & Innovation need to establish effective methods to capture VOC.
This can take many different forms such as surveys, telephone conversations, face to face interviews, feedback forms, Social Media strategies etc etc etc
Whichever mix is used the information then has to be filtered and sorted to identify priorities for New Product Development. To do this effectively it is essential to have a multi-functional team involved to get a number of perspectives.
If you are involved in Innovation you need to capture the VOC.
Fantastic news today regarding the development of a National Automotive Innovation Campus at the University of Warwick.
The UK automotive industry is set to break its all time production record of 1.92 million cars (set in 1970!!) in 2015. These figures are from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders.
You only have to follow the News to find out who’s suing who in the Intellectual Property wars, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia – they’re all at it – but is the whole intellectual property industry an anachronism of the past ?
Recently released results from Nissan the Japanese automotive manufacturer illustrate how good product design leads to improved financial returns.
This week one of the busiest Motorways in England was closed for 3 days because of a fire in a scrap yard adjoining the motorway. In the ensuing debate questions were raised about the need to prevent such a thing happening again, including closing all potential threats in sites adjoining Motorways.
On a recent business trip to Geneva I flew from Leeds Bradford Airport in the North of England. I checked through on time and headed for the gate to be met by a scene of organised chaos. The queue was very long and heaving with Schoolkids on exchange visits, holidaymakers and business people. At the very end of this long queue we were given a tray into which we had to load our laptops, keys, belts etc as part of the security screening process. This was undoubtedly the bottleneck and by the time I got through security to the Gate I was informed by an attendant that I may well have missed the flight. I was then subjected to admonishment, had I not heard the attendants calling people through for the Geneva flight – “No” , I hadn’t heard anything in melee – anyway to cut a long story short I caught my flight but not without a lot of hassle and stress.
How many times have you worked on projects where the product spec is not defined?
DFMEA or Design Failure Modes Effects Analysis is a Risk Management Tool which is widely used throughout the Automotive Industry.