Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Industrial Engineering

Major Professor

Andrew Yu

Committee Members

James Simonton, Janice Tolk

Abstract

This research paper expands upon prior research into the pursuit of the successful new product launch. It reviews the evolution of how new product launches were handled in the past and the best practices used today. The article “Value Stream Segmentation Focuses on Customer Needs” expands upon the success and failure of the practices and poses a new concept for future new product launches. The concept of “value stream segmentation” is how a company should use value stream mapping to streamline its processes to achieve a successful new product launch. By analyzing and segmenting market requirements, a business that is truly demand driven will optimize individual value streams to match its customer’s unique needs. Value stream segmentation is a strategic process for analyzing and understanding different customer requirements within a value stream. It helps an organization to define and implement product features and service offerings by aligning them to the customer expectations. Through the use of value stream mapping (VSM) the analysis of the current state can be conducted and a redesign of a future state for the series of events can take a product or service from its beginning through to the customer in less time and waste. The current state of automotive new product development is plagued with recalls. This is a direct result of not aligning a products feature to the customer expectations. In this research paper, the VSM method will be expanded upon as a tool to be used in the future approach of product development to reverse the current trend of automotive recalls.

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