Supporting new product creation in the Mondragón Valley

Purpose – Within the Mondragon Valley – an industrial heartland in the Basque Country, in the North of Spain – there has been a growing need for a practical model of the new product development (NPD) process which fulfils a variety of needs, notably the integration of strategy and technology considerations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a review of the state of the art in the NPD field, focusing on the use and limitations of both established and newer models for guiding product development. This is combined with the experiences of managing real NPD projects for companies in the Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa over the past several years.Findings – The paper presents the Ikerlan new product creation (NPC) model, designed primarily in response to area needs, which attempts to combine the most useful aspects of existing NPD models.Research limitations/implications – In the first instance, the model is created for use by companies in the Mondragon Valley – therefore it may not be possib...