Product development
Learning from one another in an inspirational environment. That’s what Neopost Technologies is all about. Product development is therefore by no means purely for the Research & Development department (R&D). The Strategic Marketing, International Product & Service Support, Purchasing and Manufacturing departments make important contributions from their professional perspectives. The “concurrent engineering” principle provides a basis allowing parts of the innovation process to be implemented in parallel rather than sequentially. The gains this provides are primarily in the speed of development for a new product and in the intrinsic quality of the design.
At any given time, six to eight different development projects will be on the go at Neopost Technologies. Three different types of development projects can be distinguished here:
- Innovation: development of new technologies and pioneering concepts.
- New Products: a platform that develops completely new machines, for which the breakthroughs from Innovation provide important added value.
Further Development: current products get new features, quality improvements, cost price reductions, etc.
The multidisciplinary project teams are put together using a project matrix. Specialists in particular fields from various departments are allocated to the project leader; together they are then jointly responsible for the implementation of the project.
Naturally, R&D often has a prominent position within these projects. Within R&D, there are three different disciplines: Mechanical Engineering, Electronics/Software Engineering and System Strategy and Innovation..
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