An analytic network process-based approach to concept evaluation in a new product development environment

Abstract

Selecting the best product concept is one of the most critical tasks in a new product development (NPD) environment. Making decisions at this stage becomes very difficult due to imprecise and uncertain product requirements. So, the evaluation process of determining the most satisfying conceptual design has been a very vital issue for companies to survive in fast-growing markets for a long time. Therefore, most companies have used various methods to successfully carry out this difficult and time-consuming process. Of these methods, an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely used in multiple-criteria decision-making problems (i.e. concept selection, equipment evaluation). In this study, however, we use an analytic network process (ANP), a more general form of AHP, due to the fact that AHP cannot accommodate the variety of interactions, dependencies and feedback between higher and lower level elements. Briefly, in this paper, an ANP-based approach is presented to evaluate a set of conceptual design alternatives in order to reach to the best concept satisfying the needs and expectations of both customers and company. In addition, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.

Keywords:

• New product development
• Concept selection
• Multiple-criteria decision-making
• Analytic network process

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Frank Kowal, Senior Engineer and all members of the cross-functional project team especially set up for this study at the hot runner manufacturer in Ontario, Canada, for their contributions to this paper.