Using principles of just-in-time to improve new product development process.

ABSTRACT

Quick new product design and development is crucial for companies to be competitive in a global market. This article shows that the principles of just-in-time (JIT) in manufacturing can be used to improve new product development (NPD) process. Analysis and comparison of key factors show a high degree of consistency between traditional manufacturing and sequential NPD. Likewise, comparison of the same factors shows remarkable similarities between JIT manufacturing and simultaneous engineering. Statistical results indicate that compared with traditional organizations, companies who adopted JIT principles developed new products with 61 percent better quality, 52 percent less development time, 38 percentage less development cost, and 33 percent less manufacturing cost. Also, frequency of new product introduction for JIT organizations is 71 percenta faster than the traditional companies. Five tests of hypotheses were conducted to test the statistical significance of NPD performances before and after JIT implementation. The data from 51organizations strongly support the hypotheses. The P-value for all five tests is less than 0.05 percent.

Key words: New Product Development, JIT

INTRODUCTION

In today's global market, price, quality, and manufacturing speed are not sufficient to stay ahead of competition once the product reaches the maturity stage of its life cycle. World class manufacturers understand that to sustain their competitiveness in the market, in addition to price, quality, and manufacturing speed, they must develop competencies to innovate, design, and introduce new products to the market quickly. Creating new product ideas that are consistent with organizational strategy, and moving these ideas through the stages of design, development, and introduction quickly has been the hallmark of successful world class organizations (Bebb, 1989; Chase, Aquilano, and Jacobs, 2001; Towner, 1994). Introducing new products to the market ahead of competition has several strategic and operational advantages. It often means charging premium price, building name recognition, controlling a large market share, and enjoying the bottom line profit. Better competitive position in the market makes it also difficult for competition to enter the market (Blackburn, 1991; Bayus, 1997; Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1994; Crawford, 1992; Franza and Lucas, 2000; Zahra and Ellor, 1993).

Who are the market leaders in introducing new products to the market fast? During the last two decades, through their JIT systems, world class manufacturers have dominated their competitors not only in the areas of price, quality, and manufacturing speed but also in new product development speed and quick commercialization of new technologies (Bebb, 1989; Dumaine, 1989a & b; Blackburn, 1991; Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Ulrich and Eppinger, 2000). To understand the relationships between JIT manufacturing and simultaneous NPD process, let's briefly review the principles of JIT systems.

Just-in-Time (JIT) production has been a great force in the world of manufacturing since the early 1980's. Some of the main benefits of JIT in the area of manufacturing such as inventory reduction, lead-time reduction, quality improvement, and cost savings have been well documented (Billesbach, 1991; Cook and Rogowski, 1996; Hobbs, 1994; Inman and Mehra, 1990; Payne, 1993; Temponi and Pandya, 1995; White, 1993; Deshpande and Golhar, 1995; Handfleld, 1993; Lawrence and Hottenstein, 1995; Golhar, Stamm, and Smith, 1990; Moras and Dieck, 1992; Sohal and Howard, 1987; Schoenberger, 1986). In the simplest form, JIT requires production of the right parts in the right quantities and at the right times. The core component of a JIT system is based on two fundamental principles: elimination of waste and respect for people (Chase, Aquilano, and Jacobs, 2001; Hobbs, 1994; Payne, 1993; Wantuck, 1983). Waste as defined by Toyota's Fujio Cho, is "anything other than the minimum amount of equipment, materials, parts, and workers, which are absolutely essential to production" (Suzaki, 1987). In a JIT system, elimination of waste is achieved by adopting the following elements: total quality management, continuous quality improvement, focused factory, reducing setup times, flexible resources, group technology layout, and pull production system (Gargeya, and Thompson, 1994; Sohal, Ramsay, and Samson, 1993; Suzaki, 1987)). Respect for people includes elements such as worker participation in manufacturing planning and decision making, team work, fair compensation, worker training, and new attitude toward suppliers (Sohal, Ramsay, and Samson, 1993; Wantuck, 1983).

Unfortunately, since its beginning in Japan in the early 1980's, a narrow view of JIT, mainly inventory reduction and frequent deliveries, has been accepted and used in U.S. and European manufacturing organizations. Application of JIT to reduce inventory is only a small fraction of the full potential benefits of a JIT system (Blackburn, 1991; Gilbert, 1994; Towner, 1994). To take advantage of the full benefits of JIT, one needs to have a much broader view of JIT principles (Blackburn, 1991). In other words, the principles of waste elimination and respect for people can be applied to other areas such as new product development, supply chain management, and even to service organizations in which there is no physical inventory. A number of recent studies showed the existence of strong relationships between manufacturing practices and organizational performance on other areas. Mohan and Montoya-Weiss (2000) studied the relationships among organizational process factors and product development capabilities. They found that organizational process factors are positively associated with new product development factors. Cua, Schroeder, and Mckone (2000) and Cua, Mckone, and Schroeder (2001) studied simultaneous practices of TQM, JIT, and TPM and found that manufacturing performance is positively associated with the level of implementation of three programs.

As mentioned earlier, during the last two decades world class manufacturers who have been successful in their JIT system have also been successful in their NPD. The primary question of interest in this article is to investigate whether this phenomenon has been coincidental or if there is a correlation between JIT manufacturing and NPD speed. The objective of this article is two fold: (1) to show that the principles of JIT in manufacturing can be used to improve NPD process by analyzing and comparing important factors in both areas; (2) to hypothesize and demonstrate statistically that organizations with successful JIT manufacturing systems have also been successful in NPD. The remainder of this article is organized in the following manner: First, we briefly review two different NPD methods, sequential and simultaneous engineering. Comparison of traditional manufacturing versus sequential NPD and JIT manufacturing versus simultaneous NPD are presented next. Measures of successful NPD, research hypotheses, research methodology and results, conclusion and managerial implications are the final sections of the article.

TRADITIONAL NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

New product development is an inter-linked sequence of information processing tasks where knowledge of customer needs is translated into final product design. Traditional NPD process also known as sequential or "over-the-wall" approach typically involves the following phases: Idea generation and validation, preliminary design, final design, process design, pilot production, and ramp-up (Wheelwright, and Clark, 1992; Russell, and Taylor, 1998). In traditional NPD, the design process is managed sequentially by personnel from various departments in the organization with very limited or no contacts. Although ideas for a new product came from different sources, traditionally it has been the marketing department's responsibility to generate ideas for a new product, and conduct a feasibility study of the product. Historically, a very large percentage of new ideas fail the validation phase. They fail because they are either incompatible with the corporate strategy or infeasible in terms of marketing, manufacturing, or financial strategies. If the ideas for a new product passes validation phase, then performance specifications for the new product are developed and passed to the design engineers in order to develop a preliminary design by means of building, testing, and revising the prototypes and making sure that the design is viable in terms of appearance, function, reliability, and maintainability. After successful completion of this phase, the product enters the final design phase where design engineers finalize the design, often by listing detail specifications, formulas, and drawings. The final design specifications are then sent to the manufacturing department for pilot production and ramp-up. The manufacturing department develops a process plan that includes specific requirements for resources to manufacture the product.

A major drawback of the sequential approach to NPD is that the output from one design stage is passed to the next stage with little or no communication. Lack of communication and feedback among sequential stages causes the process to be too slow, requires too many design changes, is too costly, and is often of poor quality. The final result is that the designs are often rejected because they are either outdated due to long development processes, or manufacturing department are unable to produce the product. The two elements of time delay and design change have created a continuing cycle where time delay causes design change and more timeis needed to accommodate design change (Blackburn, 1991; Ulrich and Eppinger, 2000).

Close examination of traditional NPD reveals that the process contains problems very similar to traditional manufacturing where the system is organized into separate departments. Customer orders are processed sequentially with very limited communication. Often departmental objectives are maximized without consideration of its impacts on other departments. In such system, while each department made decisions that were best for itself, overall the decisions may not have been to the benefit of the organization, and as a result, the company may not have been able to meet its objectives.

To solve problems associated with traditional NPD process, a complete change in design philosophies similar to the changes in JIT manufacturing are needed. In other words, total quality management, continuous quality improvement, reduced set-ups, employee involvement, employee empowerment, team work, effective use of technology, and other elements of JIT must also be applied to simultaneous NPD process.

NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT USING SIMULTANEOUS ENGINEERING PROCESS

Being competitive in the global market requires a complete redesigning of the sequential new product development process. It requires a new organizational philosophy in which organization is flat and decision making regarding NPD is done by the design team. The series of walls between various stages must be broken down and be replaced with genuine cooperation and communication. Unlike traditional "over-the-wall" approaches to NPD where functional units work sequentially and downstream functions are not involved until late in the process, simultaneous engineering requires early involvement of cross functional teams. It requires that designers, manufacturers, marketers, suppliers, and customers work jointly to design product and manufacturing processes in parallel. The objective is to integrate product design and process planning into a common activity (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Ettlie, 1997; Griffin, 1997; Schilling and Hill, 1998; Hong and Doll 2001; Donnellon, 1993; Millson, Ranj, and Wilemon, 1992; Shunk, 1992). The design team must truly understand the concept of concurrent design in which activities of product and process design are performed in a parallel and in a coordinated manner. Due to early cross-functional communication, simultaneous engineering enables an organization to be more innovative in terms of improving design quality, shortening development time, increasing the frequency of new product introduction, and reducing development and manufacturing costs (Blackburn, 1991; Ulrich, and Eppinger, 2000; Zirger and Hartley, 1996).

COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL MANUFACTURING VERSUS SEQUENTIAL NPD AND JIT MANUFACTURING VERSUS SIMULTANEOUS NPD

Blackburn (1991) provided comparison of JIT and NPD for selected parameters. Similar to Blackburn, an extensive listing of the similarities between JIT and NPD factors is presented in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows a summary of the similarities between traditional manufacturing and sequential new product development. A summary of the similarities between JIT manufacturing and simultaneous engineering is also shown in Table 2. Following are brief explanation of some important factors in Tables 1 and 2:

Layout

In traditional manufacturing, the layout is often in the form of process focus or job shop in which processes are grouped by functions. Low production volume, long lead-time, and large quantities of work in process inventory between different functions are common characteristics of this type of layout. Information generally flows in one direction, from customer to marketing, from marketing to manufacturing, and from manufacturing to distribution chain. In sequential NPD, the layout is similar to job shop except offices are located according to the function. Similar to manufacturing, information flows in one direction only, forward from marketing to designers and from designers to process development and from process development to manufacturing. In both cases, the layout encourages sequential performance of activities with minimal communication.

The layout in JIT manufacturing is often in the form of product focus and manufacturing cells. Unlike traditional manufacturing, the flow in a JIT system is in two directions; material is pulled forward, but information flows backward to provide feedback on material requirements. In simultaneous NPD, overlapping of a large number of activities requires a layout that facilitates communication and encourages teamwork. Instead of organizing by sequential functions, simultaneous engineering emphasizes cross-functional integration and the formation of a design team and project layout. A project layout creates an environment for frequent, two-way communication between team members, which encourages concurrent development of a product and its associated processes.

Lot Size

In traditional manufacturing, lot sizes are often large due to long set-up times. Large lot sizes cause long lead times and long lead times are linked to long delivery times, large work in process inventory, lower quality, and inflexibility to respond to shifts in market demand. Value added time is only about 5 percent of the total production time (Adler, 1989). In sequential NPD, information is processed in large batches. That is, designers tend to work on a large chunk of the problem, reach a conclusion, and then send it to the next department. Similar to traditional manufacturing, value added time in traditional NPD is only about 5 percent (Adler, 1989; Blackburn, 1991).

In contrast to traditional manufacturing, JIT manufacturing requires production of small lot-sizes. Production of small lot-sizes also requires reduction of the set-up times. It is well documented that production of small lot-sizes in JIT manufacturing is closely associated with improved quality, reduced inventory, faster delivery, and is more responsive to market demands (Billesbach, 1991; Cook and Rogowski, 1996; Hobbs, 1994; Payne, 1993; Temponi and Pandya, 1995; White, 1993; Deshpande and Golhar, 1995; Handfield, 1993; Lawrence and Hottenstein, 1995). Similar to JIT, continuous cross functional communication in simultaneous engineering is equivalent to utilizing small batches of information (Blackburn, 1991; White, 1993). The early release of information reduces uncertainty and encourages early detection of problems, which enables organizations to avoid costly, time-consuming changes.

Employee Involvement

In traditional manufacturing, employees are not generally involved in planning and control of production activities. Production process is highly centralized in the form of aggregate planning (AP), master production schedule (MPS), and material requirements planning (MRP). In sequential NPD, the process also tends to be centrally controlled. Due to functional separation, personnel on a design project are rarely involved in direct communication and teamwork.

In a JIT system, management encourages employee involvement and teamwork. The responsibility for job scheduling and quality are often passed to the teams at the shop floor. Similar to JIT, in simultaneous engineering the responsibility for scheduling of the activities pushed down to product development team at the lowest level. Passing responsibility down to NPD team is essential to achieve a high level of activity coordination and information sharing among team members.

Supplier Involvement

In traditional manufacturing and NPD, supplier relationships tend to be adversarial rather than cooperative, based on contracts rather than trust. In J/T and simultaneous engineering, suppliers are often members of manufacturing or NPD teams. They work closely with the organization to improve quality, shorten delivery time, and offer ideas toward new product design.

Quality

Due to large lot-size production and sequential approach, both traditional manufacturing and sequential NPD are associated with quality problems. In manufacturing, defective parts, obscured by the large lot-size, are simply passed to the next station. In traditional NPD, the sequential nature of the process creates an environment with little or no communication among functional units, and miscommunication causes NPD process to be too slow, requiring too many changes, to be too costly, and often of poor quality.

Under JIT manufacturing and simultaneous engineering, organizations are often proactive and quality means getting it right the first time. In JIT, since batch sizes are small, quality at source and continuous improvement are the main foundations. Shop floor workers are empowered to become their own inspectors responsible for the quality of their output. In simultaneous engineering, because of the teamwork and two-way flow of information between team members, quality problems are detected earlier and solved before they have a cumulative impact on the rest of the project.

Technology

The role of technology in traditional manufacturing has been mainly ineffective. Organizations often used pieces of new technologies, such as robots, as a quick way to solve manufacturing problems like bottleneck, long lead-time, or poor quality. Similarly, in sequential NPD, pieces of new technologies such as CAD have been applied to isolated parts of the process (Adler, 1989).

In a JIT manufacturing system, technology comes after simplification and understanding of the entire system, and technology is not viewed as a substitute, or shortcut to process improvement. Rather, technology has been utilized after process analysis and simplification has been performed.

The role of technology, especially information technology, in simultaneous NPD is enormous. Simultaneous engineering requires that the design team with diverse expertise makes a large number of interrelated decisions regarding the form, fit, function, cost, quality, and other aspects of the design (Karagozoglu and Brown, 1993). This requires supply and processing of relevant information from multiple sources in a coordinated manner. Effective use of technologies and tools can dramatically shorten NPD time, reduce the number of prototypes, cut costs, and improve quality of the design (Karagozoglu and Brown, 1993; Rosenthal, 1992).

MEASURES OF SUCCESSFUL NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Comparison of the factors in Tables 1 and 2 shows a high degree of consistency between conventional manufacturing and sequential NPD. The Tables also demonstrate remarkable similarities between JIT manufacturing and NPD using simultaneous engineering. Since JIT focuses on eliminating waste, improving quality, reducing costs, shortening delivery time, and improving teamwork, it is natural to apply the same principles to NPD. From an investment point of view, successful product design ultimately results in products that can be manufactured and sold profitably. The following dimensions of quality, time, competency, and costs, directly related to profit, are often used to assess the performance of a product design (Ulrich and Eppinger, 2000; Wheelwright and Clark, 1992):

1. Quality: Does the product satisfy customer needs? Quality is ultimately reflected in the price customers are willing to pay, the market share, and the bottom line profit. Design quality probles are often the result of incomplete information and miscommunication among different functions. In NPD process, quality often means a minimal number of redesign or rework. In this paper, the number of design changes during the development process and the early manufacturing phase is used as an indicator of design quality.

2. Development time: How quickly is the organization able to complete the development process? Development time is the length of time between initial idea generation until new product is ready for introduction to the market. Shorter development time raises the competitive value of the new product in terms of premium price, larger market share, and higher profit margin. Product development time determines how responsive the firm can be to competition and to technology, as well as how quickly the organization receives financial returns from the sales of the product.

3. Developing Competency: Is the organization able to develop future products better, faster, and cheaper as a result of their experience with product development? Development competency is an asset that an organization can use to develop products more effectively and economically in the future. A competent workforce and effective use of technologies are important elements of organizational competency. Frequency of new product introduction to the market is used as a measure of development competency.

4. Development cost: How much did it cost to develop the product? This is the one-time total cost from the early idea generation until the product is ready for manufacturing. For most organizations, development cost is a significant portion of the budget and must be considered in light of budget realities and the timing of budget allocations.

5. Manufacturing cost: How much would it cost to produce the product? This cost includes initial investment on equipment and tools as well as the incremental cost of manufacturing the product. There is a close relationship between manufacturing cost and the type of decisions made during the early design stage (Huthwaite, B. 1991). For instance, early manufacturing involvement in NPD promotes design-for-manufacturing and design-for-assembly techniques, which can lead to fewer parts, easier assembly, less scrap, higher yields and ultimately lower manufacturing cost.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Given the analysis of the factors in Tables 1 and 2, one would expect to see strong relationships between the deployment of JIT principles and NPD performances. This leads to the following hypotheses:

H1: Organizations with JIT manufacturing system will design new products with better quality.

H2: Organizations with JIT manufacturing system will design new products faster.

H3: Organizations with JIT manufacturing system will design new products with better development competency (i.e. more frequently).

H4: Organizations with J1T manufacturing system will design new products with less development cost.

H5: Organizations with JIT manufacturing system will design new products with less manufacturing cost.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS

Testing the above hypotheses required data collection on NPD performances for the organizations who have adopted JIT principles and reported data before and after their implementation. The method used in this research is the analysis of existing data primarily from two sources. The first source, published data from previous JIT and NPD research since early 1980's. In our search, we were interested in those publications that have reported not only the main benefits of JIT, but also reported their NPD performance before and after JIT implementation. The second source of the data was electronic search of various databases. The Lexis/Nexis database was used to identify the firms that have publicly announced their JIT implementation. The database was searched for keywords such as JIT production, lean production, zero inventory, and Kanban production. The search pattern was repeated for other databases such as the Wall Street Journal Index database, and Standard and Poor's COMPUSTAT annual industrial, and annual research databases. Overall, from the period of 1982 to 2000, 51 companies were found that have adopted JIT principles and reported their NPD performances before and after JIT implementation. Some well known U.S., Japanese, and European companies were among the companies in the list. The collected data covers organizations on different industries ranging from automotive, electronics, communication, computers, home appliances, pharmaceutical, chemical, tools, and household products. Out of a sample of 51 companies, 23 reported the number of design changes before and after JIT, 26 reported development time and development competency, and 22 companies reported development cost and manufacturing cost before and after JIT implementation. A summary of the statistical results is given in Table 3.

Table 3 provides useful information regarding the NPD performances before and after JIT implementation. In terms of design quality, the average number of design changes before JIT implementation is 4.46 while after JIT adoption is 2.77, an improvement of 61 percentage. Table 3 also shows average development time prior to JIT is 34.88 months while after JIT implementation is 22.92 months, an improvement of 52 percent. For development competency, the average time between introductions of new products is 57.40 months prior to JIT and it is 33.50 months after JIT adoption, an improvement of 71 percent. Table 3 also indicates that JIT organizations enjoy a 38 percent reduction in development cost and 33 percent reduction in manufacturing cost. Since data on NPD performances covers organizations before and after JIT implementation, tests of hypotheses with dependent samples were used to test the hypotheses. From Table 3, it is clear that all hypotheses are strongly supported by the data. Hypothesis H1 stated that organizations with JIT production system will design new products with better quality. This relationship is strongly supported by the data as indicated by the t-value of 4.16 and the P-value of less than 0.05 percent. The relationship between JIT and NPD time, hypothesis H2, is also strongly supported with the t-value of 4.97 and the P-value of less than 0.05 percent. The stated relationship between JIT and the frequency of new production introduction, hypothesis H3, is also strongly supported by the data with the t-value of 4.91 and the P-value of less than 0.05 percentage. Finally, JIT has a significant impact on reducing development cost, hypothesis H4, and manufacturing cost, hypothesis H5. The t-values for the two hypotheses are respectively 5.93 and 5.74, and the P-values for both tests are less than 0.05 percent.

CONCLUSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

New product innovation and quick design, development, and market introduction is crucial for companies to be competitive in a global market. The main objective of this article was to show that the principles of JIT in manufacturing can be used to improve NPD process. Comparison of the factors in Table 1 indicates a high degree of consistency between traditional manufacturing and sequential NPD. Likewise, elements of Table 2 show remarkable similarities between J1T manufacturing and simultaneous engineering. Statistical results indicate that, compared with traditional organizations, companies who adopted JIT principles, develop new products with 61 percentage better quality, 52 percent less development time, 38 percent less development cost, and 33 percent less manufacturing cost. Also, frequency of new product introduction for JIT organizations is 71 percent faster than the traditional companies. Five tests of hypotheses were conducted to test the statistical significance of NPD performances before and after JIT implementation. The data from 51 organizations strongly support the hypotheses. The P-value for all five tests is less than 0.05 percentage.

For organizations trapped in a never ending cycle of design, review, inspect and redesign of sequential NPD, the managerial implications of this research is that successful implementation of JIT principles goes much beyond inventory reduction and frequent deliveries. Since JIT focuses on eliminating waste, improving quality, reducing costs, shortening delivery time, and improving teamwork, it is natural to apply the same principles to other areas of business such as NPD. TABLE 1 COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL MANUFACTURING VERSUS SEQUENTIAL NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

New Product Factor Manufacturing Development Layout Process Focus, Job Shop Functional

(over the wall

approach) Set-up Time Long Long Lot Size Large Due to Long Set-ups Large Batches

of Information Process Flow Sequential Sequential Information Flow Forward (one direction) Forward (one

direction) Lead Time Long Long Scheduling Centralized From above Centralized

(MPS and MRP) Control Employee Involvement/ Low Low Employee Authority Supplier Involvement Low, Little Coordination, Low Involvement

Adversarial Employee Communication/ Low Low Employee Contribution Quality Poor, High Defect Rates, Numerous Changes

High Rework in Design, High

Rework Technology Isolated NC, Robots Isolated PC, CAD Value Added Small Small Decision Making Close to Top Close to Top TABLE 2 COMPARISON OF JIT MANUFACTURING VERSUS SIMULTANEOUS NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

New Product Factor Manufacturing Development Layout Product Focus, GT Project Teams Set-up Time Short Short Lot Size Small Small (information) Process Flow Coordinated Activities, Parallel Activities,

Two Way Flow-Material Simultaneous

Downward, Information Engineering, Two

upward way Flow of

Information Information Flow Closed Loop, Closed Loop,

Forward/ Backward Forward/Backward Lead Time Short Short Scheduling Localized Control, Localized Product,

Employee Involvement Team Control

and Responsibility Employee Involvement High High Supplier Involvement High, Quality Partners, High, Extensive

High Level of Sharing Involvement in

Information on Product Development

Schedule, Quality,

Technical Problems Employee Communication High High Quality High, Low Defect Rates, Few Changes in

Low Rework Design, Low Rework Technology/Automation Integrated Systems, Integrated CAD,

Automation After CAE, CAM, CADFM

Simplification Value Added Large Large Decision Making Local (Manufacturing Local (Design Team)

Team) TABLE 3 NPD PERFORMANCES FOR TRADITIONAL AND JIT MANUFACTURERS

Sampl Tradition Impro NPD e al JIT - d ** s ** Performance Size (Before vemet

(n) JIT) (%) Quality (average 23 4.46 2.77 61 1.69 1.95 number of design changes) Average Development 26 34.88 22.92 52 11.96 12.28 Time (Months) Development Competency 26 57.40 33.50 71 23.90 24.80 (Months) Development 22 137.80 * 100 * 38 * 37.80 29.90 Cost Manufacturing 22 133.40 * 100 * 33 * 33.40 27.30 Cost NPD ** *** Performance t- P-

value value Quality (average number of 4.16 <0.05 design changes) % Average Development Time (Months) 4.97 <0.05 Development % Competency <0.05 (Months) 4.91 % Development <0.05 Cost 5.93 % Manufacturing <0.05 Cost 5.74 % * data reported in terms of percent improvement ** d = the difference between traditional and JIT performance measure; s = standard deviation; t-value = computed t value; *** small P-value indicates the difference between two measures is statistically significant.

REFERENCES

Adler, P. S. (1989). CAD/CAM: Managerial challenges and research issues. IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management, 36(3), 202-215.

Bayus, B. L. (1997). Speed-to-market and new product performance tradeoffs. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 14(6), 485-497.

Bebb, H. B. (1989). Quality design engineering: The missing link to U.S. competitiveness. Keynote Address to the NSF Engineering Design Research Conference, Amherst, MA.

Billesbach, T. J. (1991). A study of implementation of just-in-time in the United States. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 32(3), 1-4.

Blackburn, J. D. (1991). Time-based competition, the next battleground in American manufacturing. Business one Irwin, Homewood, IL.

Chase, R. B., Aquilano N. J. and Jacobs, F. R. (2001). Operations management for competitive advantage. (9th ed.). Irwin: McGraw-Hill.

Clark, K. B. and Fujimoto, T. (1991). Product development performance. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Cook, R. L. and Rogowski, R. A. (1996). Applying JIT principles to process manufacturing supply chains. Production and Inventory Management, 1st Quarter, 12-17.

Cooper, R. G., and Kleinschmidt, E. J. (1994). Determinants of timeliness in product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 11, 381-396.

Crawford, M. (1992). The hidden costs of accelerated product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 9 (3), 188-199.

Cua, K. O., Schroeder, R. G. and McKone, K. (2000). Integration of TQM, JIT, and TPM practices in high performing manufacturing plants. Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 1074-1076.

Cua, K. O., McKone, K. and Schroeder, R. G. (2001). Integrated manufacturing programs and improved manufacturing performance. Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 225-227.

Deshpande, S. P., and Golhar, D. Y. (1995). HRM practices in unionized and non-unionized Canadian JIT manufacturing firms. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 1st Quarter, 15-19.

Donnellon, A. (1993). Cross functional teams in product development: Accommodating the structure to the process. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 10, 377-392.

Dumaine, B. (1989a). How managers can succeed through speed. Fortune, February 13.

Dumaine, B. (1989b). P&G rewrites the marketing rules. Fortune, November 6.

Ettlie, J. E. (1997). Integrated design and new product success. Journal of Operations Management, 33(1), 33-55.

Franza, R. M. and Lucas, M. T. (2000). New product development: A mathematical model of the time-to-market versus product performance tradeoff. Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 1019-1021.

Gargeya, V. B., and Thompson, J. P. (1994, July/August). Just-in-time production in small job shops. Industrial Management, 23-26.

Gilbert, J. T. (1994, Aug.). Faster! Newer! Is not a strategy. Advanced Management Journal.

Golhar, D. Y., Stamm, C. L., and Smith, W. P. (1990). JIT implementation in manufacturing firms. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 31 (2), 44-48.

Griffin, A. (1997). PDMA research on new product development practices: Updating trends and benchmarking best practices. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 14, 429-458.

Handfield, R. (1993). Distinguishing features of just-in-time systems in the make-to-order/assemble to order environment. Decision Sciences, 24(3), 581-602.

Hobbs, O. K. (1994). Application of JIT techniques in a discrete batch job shop. Production and Inventory Management, 1st Quarter, 43-47.

Hong, P. C. and Doll, W. (2001). Team vision in integrated product development. Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 426-428.

Huthwaite, B. (1991). Managing at the starting line: How to design competitive products. Workshop at the University/Southern California-Los Angeles, January 14, p. 3.

Inman, R. A. and Mehra, S. (1990). The transferability of just-in-time concepts to American small businesses. Interfaces, 20(2), 30-37.

Karagozoglu, N., and Brown, W. B. (1993). Time-based management of the new product development process. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 10, 204-215.

Lawrence, J. J., and Hottenstein, M. P. (1995). The relationship between JIT manufacturing and performance in Mexican plants affiliated U.S. companies. Journal of Operations Management, 13, 3-18.

Millson, M. R., Ranj, S. P., and Wilemon, D. A. (1992). A survey of major approaches for accelerating new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 9(1), 53-69.

Mohan, T. V., and Montoya-Weiss, M. M. (2000). Operational and market success for product development projects: The influence of process factors and organizational capabilities under condition of uncertainty. Proceedings of the Decision Sciences Institute, 1022-1024.

Moras, R. G., and Dieck, A. J. (1992). Industrial applications of just-in-time: Lessons to be learned. Production and Inventory Management, 3rd Quarter, 25-29.

Payne, T. E. (1993). Acme manufacturing: A case study in JIT implementation. Production and Inventory Management, 2nd Quarter, 82-86.

Rosenthal, S. R. (1992). Effective product design and development, how to cut lead time and increase customer satisfaction. Business one Irwin, Homewood, IL.

Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W. (1998). Production and operations Management, focusing on quality and competitiveness. Prentice Hall.

Schilling, M. A. and Hill, C. W. (1998), Managing the new product development process: Strategic imperatives. The Academy of Management Executive, 12(3), 67-81.

Schonberger, R. J. (1986). Worm class manufacturing. New York, NY: Free Press.

Shunk, D. L. (1992). lntegrated process design and development. Irwin.

Sohal, A. S., Ramsay, L., and Samson, D. (1993). JIT manufacturing: Industry analysis and a methodology for implementation. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 13(7), 22-56.

Sohal, A. S. and Howard, K. (1987). Trends in material management. International Journal of Production Distribution and Materials Management, 17(5), 3-41.

Suzaki, K. (1987). The new manufacturing challenge: Techniques for continuous improvement. New York: Free Press.

Temponi, C., and Pandya, S. Y. (1995). Implementation of two JIT elements in small-sized manufacturing firms. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 3rd Quarter, 23-29.

Towner, S. J. (1994, April). Four ways to accelerate new product development. Long Range Planning.

Ulrich, K. T. and Eppinger, S. D. (2000). Product design and development. McGraw Hill.

Wantuck, K. A. (1983). The Japanese approach to productivity. Bendix Corporation, Southfield, MI.

Wheelwright, S.C. and Clark, K. B. (1992). Revolutionizing product development. New York: Free Press.

White, R. E. (1993). An empirical assessment of JIT in U.S. manufacturers. Production and Inventory Management, 2nd Quarter, 38-42.

Zahra, S. A. and Ellor, D. (1993, Winter). Accelerating new product development and successful market introduction. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 9-15.

Zirger, B. J. and Hartley, L. (1996). The effect of acceleration techniques on product development time. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 43(2), 143-152.

Mohammad Z. Meybodi is Associate Professor of Operations Management in the School of Business at Indiana University Kokomo. He earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Oklahoma. His research areas of interest include aggregate production planning, production scheduling, stochastic modeling, total quality management, and just-in-time systems. He has published in journals such as Annals of Operations Research, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Mathematics Today, and International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management.