Understanding the value of a product development project is central to a firm's choice of project portfolio. The value of a project to a firm depends not only on its properties but also on the other projects being developed by the firm. This is due to interactions with the other projects that...

In a wide variety of settings, organizations generate a number of possible solutions to a problem--ideas--and then select a few for further development. We examine the effectiveness of two group structures for such tasks--the team structure, in which the group works together in time and space,...

Design for manufacturing (DFM) has been promoted as a way to enhance product development and production system performance. Current DFM practices encourage the minimization of the number of parts in a design through the physical integration of several geometric features in the same part. While...

Using data from the U.S. bicycle industry, we examine the relation among product variety, supply chain structure, and firm performance. Variety imposes two types of costs on a supply chain: production costs and market mediation costs. Production costs include, among other costs, the incremental...

Product variety in many industries has increased steadily throughout this century. Component sharing---using the same version of a component across multiple products---is increasingly viewed by companies as a way to offer high variety in the marketplace while retaining low variety in their...

Component sharingÔusing the same version of a component across multiple productsÔis an approach adopted by many assembled-product manufacturers to achieve high final product variety with lower component variety and cost. This paper presents a methodology for determining which versions of a set...

This paper addresses the question of how the vertical structure of a product line relates to brand equity. Does the presence of “premium” or high-quality products in a product line enhance brand equity? Conversely, does the presence of “economy” or low-quality products in a product line...