Decision model for regional vehicle accessory development

Abstract

In new product development process, the front end is usually called fuzzy front end with difficult alignment between workers since data is presented in the form of estimations and best guess. Besides, Asia Pacific and Africa is a high growth region where companies are heading toward regionalization for cost reductions and frequently introduce new products to customers. This study is aimed to accommodate the case company with a multi-criteria decision making model which supports the choosing of regional vehicle accessory new product development and investment. A combination of modified stage and gate process, currently used for case company's vehicle development, and multi-criteria decision making method is proposed in a form of decision making model and calculation sheet. Advantages of Analytical Hierarchy Process and Weight Sum Method are jointed in the alternatives prioritization process. The model was tested with two projects and sensitivity analysis is done with the weights given to the criteria. The model is proven to be effective that from initial idea to the prioritized accessory list, gates are reduced from 16 to 5 and timing used reduced from 27 to 17 weeks. The process is more transparency and the output satisfied direct users at 79% satisfaction rating.