The article reviews the strategic planning necessary in conducting research and development. It stresses the importance of creating projects that serve necessary both for the consumers and the commercial interest of the company. Setting aside competency and skill, management must focus on delivering on-time results and continue on a long term strategic development of new technology and processes in order to gain significant advantage on the market.
In operational management, new product development in necessary in order for the company to function in the long run. Product development arises from the increased competition and advance in technology (Mba-om.blogspot.com, 2010). One of the main aspects of operation's management is to improve competitive advantage and survival of the company. During the product development process and research, a strategic plan must be outlined first in designing a structured assignment process of each project to different research head. And the basis on this assignment must include: competency and project load. The article surmises that companies fail to assess the workload of research and development officers in assigning projects (Wheelwright & Clark, 1992). And the operation of selecting individual researchers would create an efficient distribution among the departments and ensure focus among the members, and on-time completion of the projects. To assess the unnecessary unrelated work for the researchers, specific support department must be created to bridge communication between other departments and research and development. This proposal must be done to eliminate time spent on providing support by the researchers on inquiries and professional advice. The support team would take on that specific role to ensure the research team could devote their time on developing new technologies and completing research projects.
Part of Operation Management is to provide efficiency, effectiveness and value to the company. In research and development, efficiency must take place proper work assignment and work distribution. Effectiveness is seen on project completion based on timeliness of consumer demands and the success of innovation. Value comes on the commercial side of the business. At the end of the day, sales would still be the basis if the project is successful or not.
Bibliography
Mba-om.blogspot.com, (2010). Operations Management: New Product Development. Retrieved 7 June 2014, from http://mba-om.blogspot.com/p/new-product-development.html
Wheelwright, S., & Clark, K. (1992). Creating Project Plans to Focus Product Development. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 7 June 2014, from http://hbr.org/1992/03/creating-project-plans-to-focus-product-development/ar/1
