| dc.description.abstract | The past three decades have witnessed an explosive proliferation of information and communications technologies (ICT). These involved changes in technology, product,
Applications , management practice, as well as business models. The ICT industry as a whole has also encountered considerable changes. Intense competition within the industry results in new demands for shorter cycle times for new product development.
Under escalating competition, the electronics industry faced with thinner profit margin. Many companies are forced to switch from marketing-orientation to customer-orientation, emphasizing more on new product introduction process management, which becomes one of the important factors affecting competitiveness of a manufacturing company.
New product development time has become a critical success factor for producers of communications related products. Many of these companies have a home base in Taiwan, focusing in research and development, coupled with production facilities in Mainland China. These telecommunications equipment industry is among the three fastest growing industries in China. In general, the life cycle of electronic products has shortened by half every five years, while the market size double in the same five-year period. Speeding up new product development becomes critical.
This study looks into the challenge of new product development processes for Company C in the Communications industry. It is a typical distributed company spanning across the Taiwanese Straits. This study examines its new product development process and proposes changes in terms of organization structure (taking the form of organic organization), parallel processes, concurrent engineering. Pilot run of the proposal reveals that the cycle time has been effectively reduced.
| en_US |