Analysis of the conditions for LPD in the Swedish context

Important results from the project

The objective with the project ´Simplified LPD´ has been to enforce the development of Swedish companies´ product development process. It has been achieved through identification of how LPD can be utilized within the Swedish context. It is the enterprise development need, originated from its unique present state, that is key for this context, instead of a LPD transform. Furthermore, the gap between theory and practice has been analyzed which indicates the need of understanding their own product development process in order to identify present state and key mechanisms of improvement.

Expected long term effects

The project has produced a survey and state-of-the-art analysis based on its objective focusing on contributing with deeper understanding for the product development system behavior. The survey is within the areas of sustainable product development and innovative product development methods. The results can be summarized in a feedback structure presented as the ´PD-process dynamics´ presented in the appendix, which visualizes important system behaviors such as the need of early identification of knowledge gaps and improved structure for increased level of innovation.

Approach and implementation

The project comprehended a smaller study, naturally not claiming the total answer and enlightenment on the subject. The literature review aimed both to contribute to the survey and to form the interview setup. Increased budget could have enabled further formalization of a methodology for enterprise PD-process improvement for the given context and also a deeper analysis of the interview results in relation to such methodology. The thought of origin using a workshop was swapped with company specific interventions of the results based on the belief that it brought better interaction.