Challenge and Opportunity For The Manager of The 80's

Intense worldwide competition of the 1980's is forcing U.S. corporations to greatly improve product value with scarce resources and short lead time. While these are difficult challenges, they also are opportunities for imaginative managers. The paper describes an approach for product development which is based on three key factors.

• Developing customer oriented product goals and aligning them with corporate business goal of profitability.
• Implementation of these goals by an integrated multidisciplinary team effort.
• A simultaneous or parallel execution of all activities rather than a sequential approach.