Integration and formalization of strategic product development and commercialization in a manufacturing company : A challenge for supply chain management

The last decades a new type of business environments has evolved characterized by rapid and volatile demand changes, short product life cycles, and high levels of customized products. The competitiveness of a business in these environments is mostly determined by its responsiveness. This is characterized by the ability to quickly scale up or down the production volume, the presence of an innovative and fast product development, and a quick incorporation of consumer requirements into the product development. This paper employs a descriptive case study approach to illustrate how product development and commercialization can be integrated into a product management flow to realize innovative and faster product development. Case study findings reveal that the case company has during a five year period increased the number of successful product introductions. Furthermore, the studied approach proves to be successful in this mature business environment where it is essential to develop products based on the consumer need and behaviour and to differentiate the product assortment. Based on our case study we also recognize that the product management flow does not concern supply chain management (SCM) to some extent in the case company – this indicates that further development is needed in SCM applications to support product life-cycle based managerial processes