Risk management of new product development process

Dissertation submitted to Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa for the achievement of Integrated Master´s degree in Industrial Management Engineering

Winners in today´s global changing environment, are those who continuously pursuit innovations in order to guarantee their sustainability. If in the presence of a certain environment many enterprises makes enormous mistakes, in an uncertain environment as the development of innovations, these mistakes will be multiplied. Moreover, since little effort has been made in developing empirical models, metrics and tools to manage risks in product development, this work aspires to satisfy the necessity of high-tech enterprises with a useful and pragmatic approach to manage the risks of their new product development (NPD) process. Besides it provides for enterprise´s innovation life cycle, a NPD risk management methodology with efficient techniques to manage risks in advance and during the development of new products, it will provide a new conceptualization of enterprises’ innovation and NPD process, for supporting future research in the innovation field. This master thesis will explore the innovation field, revealing that radical and incremental innovations are complementary during the innovation life cycle and accomplished through distinct process of developing new products. Through this new perspective, this work succeed in providing a NPD risk management model for both type of innovations aiming a universal best practice to identify, analyze, and manage risks in the NPD process.