文档介绍：外文原文:
Small and medium district enterprises and the new product development challenge
Literature dealing with the product development process in large-scale industries is abundant. However, there is general agreement that the new product development (NPD) process is not adequately studied in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and models and tools specifically focused for these units are lacking.
The innovation process in SMEs possesses certain distinguishing features that would suggest a specific approach to NPD activities. pared with large-sized firms, the innovative process in small units is more informal and less structured, the base of petencies is limited, availability of financial resources is lower, the attraction towards skilled labour weaker and the propensity for interaction with other firms is limited.
Effective NPD has e the focal point petitiveness in many industries, particularly those where product life has shortened, competition increased on a global basis, and customer demand for greater product variety has grown (Maylor, 1997; Pisano 1997). Consequently, research on best practices in product development, that is, practices and methods which make firms good product innovators, has increased (see Abdalla, 1999; Griffin, 1997).
Analysing these contributions we can note that most are ascribable to concurrent engineering (CE) tools and techniques. CE suggests an “integrated” design approach, that is, a systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and processes. This would force developers to consider all elements of the production cycle right from conception to expedition, including quality, cost, schedule and user requirements.
There do not appear to be any papers on the specific problems of NPD in IDs. However, various authors point out the characteristics of the innovativeprocess that typically develop in IDs. We can observe how the district localisation mitigates some of the limits mentioned, but can generate others: