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Engineering Commons

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Portland State University

Series

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

New products

2003

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Educating The Guess: Strategies, Concepts And Tools For The Fuzzy Front End Of Product Development, Antonie J. Jetter Jan 2003

Educating The Guess: Strategies, Concepts And Tools For The Fuzzy Front End Of Product Development, Antonie J. Jetter

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many companies lack efficient management of the early phases of new product development (NPD) - the socalled fuzzy front end (FFE). Rather than on structured methods, decision makers rely on ?gut ?feel? or ?guessing?. In an attempt to ?educate the guess? this paper discusses the activities and challenges of the FFE, as well as strategies to manage them successfully. It then briefly presents traditional and recent approaches to front-end management support. Based on the identified strengths and weaknesses of existing front-end solutions, the framework of a new management support system for the FFE is presented. Conceptually, the system is based …