In today’s dynamic marketplace, manufacturing companies are under strong pressure to introduce
new products for long-term survival with their competitors. Nevertheless, every company cannot cope
up progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to knowledge dynamics being
experienced in the competitive milieu. Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force
upon companies to develop new products faster. In response to these pressing needs, there should be
some new approach compatible in flexible circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the
popular Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach. Virtual teams can
provide a platform to advance the knowledge-base in a company and thus to reduce time-to-market.
This article introduces conceptual product development architecture under a virtual team umbrella.
The paper describes all the major aspects of new product development (NPD), NPD process and its
relationship with virtual teams, Stage-Gate system finally presents a modified Stage-Gate system to
cope up with the changing needs. It also provides the guidelines for the successful implementation of
virtual teams in new product development.
Nader
Ale Ebrahim holds a PhD degree in Technology Management from the Department of
Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of
Malaya. He holds a Master of Science in the Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Tehran with distinguished honors. He also has over 19 years of
experience in the establishment of the R&D departments in different
companies, heading projects as the project director and project coordinator and
implementing knowledge based system in the R&D department. His current
research interest focuses on E-skills, Research Tools, Bibliometrics and
managing virtual NPD teams in SMEs’ R&D centers. His papers/articles have
published and presented in the several journals and conferences.
Modified stage-gate system
virtual product development
conceptual model
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