New product development: Speed and quality

The literature has generally advocated faster new product development (NPD). But, increasing the speed of NPD also has its risks and possible costs, unless waste is simply being eliminated from the NPD process. Also, waiting too long to introduce a product has potential negative consequences in terms of missing the market and increasing development costs. As a result, we suggest there exists an optimal development time and formulate a mathematical model to determine the best NPD time which maximizes profit to the firm. This model is then solved for its optimal NPD time and the resulting implications of the model for managers are explained.