The development of a decision support tool for the selection of advanced technology to achieve rapid product development

In a highly competitive market, product design, manufacturing and distribution strategies may change frequently and rapidly. The challenge for a company is not only how to continue to maintain a technically advanced and competitive product but also how to reduce the design, development and manufacturing time in line with demands of the market. This paper outlines a decision support tool to assess the value of investing in Time Compression Technologies (TCTs) to achieve rapid product development. It presents a proposed data structure to monitor the effectiveness of a decision, and a decision model which consolidates quantitative and qualitative variables through the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Cost/Benefit and statistical analyses. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.