Innovation

MEL Chemicals operates a stage gate new product development system.

PURPOSE

The purpose of the New Product Development (NPD) Process is to:

• Ensure new or improved products are rapidly developed to meet customer needs
• Enable these new products to be supplied for evaluation and approval by the customer in a timely manner
• Ensure that efficient, viable and capable processes for production of the new or improved products are developed
• Enable these actions to be carried out and recorded in a structured manner using cross-functional teams.

 

PROCEDURE

The New Product Development (NPD) Process is divided up into six stages, each with a Gate Review before the next stage.

• Concept             Initial Idea
• Stage 1              Outline Plans and Preliminary Investigation
• Stage 2              Prototype
• Stage 3              Detailed Investigation - Scale up
• Stage 4              Optimisation/Validation
• Stage 5              Continuous Improvement