Early manufacturing involvement in new product development

There continues to be an increase in the amount of R&D resources being devoted to new product development and the role of manufacturing in this persistent issue. Although many firms like IBM have advocated early manufacturing involvement (EMI) in product development, it is not clear when, how and who should represent manufacturing. The role of manufacturing in new product programs was investigated with two surveys: a sample of 43 durable goods companies (1991); and a sample of 126 R&D performing firms with new product introduction (1992-93). In the first survey, it was found that only 4 (9%) of 43 companies reported any type of early manufacturing involvement in new product development projects-that is, involvement in the concept development stage. In the second survey, it was found that the number of new ideas sourced in manufacturing was also quite small (3%). Therefore, a causal model was constructed using measures other than idea sourcing (i.e., early manufacturing involvement, EMI, in concept development and idea generation) and it was found that EMI was significantly related to reduction in design change requests which, in turn, significantly promotes return-on-investment (ROI) of these new products.