Product Development Systematization and Performance: a case-study in an automotive company

Product development process (PDP) has been recognized as a source of competitive profits and nowadays has received special attention from companies. Recent literature suggests that to get an effective systematization it is necessary to analyze and improve this business process. Then PDP models had been a common place in the research agenda. This article describes the case of product development systematization in a specific automotive enterprise. During the case research it was collected recent data of company performance and history information regarding changes on its PDP model and practices. This research allowed us to identify actions, best and bad practices and analyze the impact on performance in order to identify aspects to be studied. Finally, this research discusses gaps between implemented activities and PDP models related in the bibliographical review.