Sustainable Product Development for SMEs

Small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing industry are increasingly engaging in new product development (NPD) activities to give them a competitive edge even though shorter product lifecycles, limited resources and expertise in the area of NPD makes them vulnerable to the associated risks. Nevertheless, Investment in new technology is now more affordable for SMEs due to technological developments and the availability of numerous solutions. This presentation explores the current practices of a typical manufacturing SME in the development of a new product to identify critical issues faced by the enterprise during the product development process and the implementation of standard procedures for the continuous development of new products. The aim is to demonstrate the relationship between the application of enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology, personnel involvement and product development and how the application and utilization of affordable technologies can be used to implement sustainable product development procedures for SMEs.