A new model to ascertain product maturity in product development processes

Time, cost and quality are the three focused criteria in product development projects. While the factors time and costs can already be tracked very well during the entire course of a project through existing project management methods, the factor quality is by far more difficult to control. How mature the expected final product in the different development phases is, organizations seldom analyze systematically. Existing product maturity models and methods are mainly developed towards the needs and conditions of large companies within the automotive industry and therefore are found to be very complex and time-consuming to implement. This paper deals with the question to which extent existing quality methods are suited to monitor the product maturity during the development process of physical products. Based on established methods a new model is developed to calculate the product maturity during the development process with as less additional effort as possible. One characteristic value, which thereby highly influences the product maturity, is the uncertainty of the used decision data basis in terms of expert knowledge, technical simulation results or test results during the development process. The article ends with a practical validation of the new method, performed in an innovative, small and medium-sized company. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.