Measuring the product innovation process

The pressure on industry to develop better quality products faster is greater today than it has ever been in the past. Progressively over the past decade the rate of new product launches has increased as companies and nations jostle for superiority. Product development time has become a major source of competitive advantage. At the organisational level the number of new product launches a company achieves is very visible, easy to measure and widely understood. However, measures suitable for quantifying parts of the process are less obvious and clear. This article introduces some of the problems and pitfalls that are there to be found and offers a structured top-down approach to designing a measurement system.