Many companies have adopted stage-gate models to manage different types of development projects, which can vary in degree of newness. Currently, there is limited research on how the development projects, stage-gate models and degree of newness are correlated in practice from a production perspective. Based on a case study at a manufacturing company, this paper examines correlations from a production perspective. The results show that the company runs nine types of development projects in production, and uses two forms of stage-gate models. The degree of newness is not addressed in a structured way in production compared to the product development process.

The need for new products to suit differentiated customer needs and shorter product life-cycles, forces manufacturers to change or modify products and production systems at more frequent intervals. The objective of this paper is to discuss management of newness within assembly system design in the vehicle industry. Based on a case study covering four assembly development projects, a model using the quality concept of “7M” is presented to evaluate the level of newness. The results show that the model provides a promising platform for evaluation of newness. 

Due to the major advantages such as reduced time to market and improved quality at lowered cost, the principles of design for assembly capabilities and concurrent engineering are of great significance when developing new products. However, identifying assembly requirement specifications and considering them in New Product Development (NPD) in a timely manner, while securing efficiency and robustness of assembly processes, still remains a challenging task. In presenting a case study of an NPD project in a manufacturing company, this article focuses on the process of capturing and incorporating the requirements related to the assembly system during the early phases of NPD. Further, the results of the research study indicate the different assembly requirements in the case company and pinpoint the challenges in practices involved in handling them. The assembly requirements identified in this research reflect some of the challenges encountered in handling the requirements, through the investigated requirement practice. Based on the results, the issues of when and how to consider the assembly requirements are highlighted in the conclusions and suggestions for future research are made.