New Product Development (NPD) Process in the Context of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 consisting of smart, connected and autonomous manufacturing systems is fast becoming a reality. In view of this, industries are making radical changes in their manufacturing systems to adapt to new and evolving climate of manufacturing. Secondly, the Industry 4.0 implementation is bridging the differences between product design and design of product service systems (PSS). One can see a strong and inevitable coupling among product design, process design and production system design. All these aspects call for revisiting new product development (NPD) processes and to modify the same in the context of new manufacturing settings. This paper identifies key changes needed in NPD process and proposes a new structure to derive value accrued by embracing Industry 4.0 technologies. The research has been carried out in the context of machine tool industry and proposed changes have been ratified by industry experts.