Title: The impact of just-in-time practices on new product development: a managerial perspective

Authors: Mohammad Z. Meybodi

Addresses: School of Business, Indiana University Kokomo, 2300 S. Washington Street, Kokomo, IN 46904-9003, USA

Abstract: The focus of this article is to show that the principles of just-in-time (JIT) in manufacturing can also be used to improve new product development using simultaneous engineering (NPDSE) process. Five hypotheses regarding the relationships between JIT and NPDSE were developed and tested using survey data from a sample of 500 manufacturing organisations in Midwestern United States. The survey data strongly support the hypotheses that successful JIT organisations will design new products with fewer design changes, less development time, better competency, less development cost and less manufacturing cost. The p-value for all tests is less than 0.0005. Statistical results also indicate that successful JIT manufacturing organisations are able to develop new products with 67% fewer design changes, 61% less development time, 74% more frequency, 45% less development cost and 36% less manufacturing cost.

Keywords: just-in-time; JIT; new product development; NPD; simultaneous engineering; concurrent engineering; product design; design changes; manufacturing cost; development cost; development time.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2005.007251

International Journal of Product Development, 2005 Vol.2 No.3, pp.254 - 264

Published online: 27 Jun 2005 *

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