R&D 6시그마 導入 에 따른 新製品 開發의 成果에 관한 硏究

A Study on the Performance Improvement of New Product Development by Implementing R&D Six Sigma

Although world best companies are adopting product development methods, which is basically based on customer needs, domestic companies seems to be lack of understanding customers’ potential needs. GE, one of the pioneer companies introducing six sigma approach in manufacturing, also initiated application of six sigma to R&D, which is called DFSS (Design For Six Sigma). In nature, DFSS has a process of combining concurrent engineering, NPD(New Product Development), and NPI(New Product Introduction), altogether. In this paper, we define a similar, but new, concept of R&D six sigma in terms of a combination of individual development process and development structure. Then, we suggest a hypothesis that R&D six sigma could have positive effects on product development performance. To prove this hypothesis, 300 manufacturing companies(home appliance, PC production oriented electronic industry and car manufacturing companies) were sampled, and surveyed. The result shows that introducing a R&D six sigma has effects on product development, and users of R&D six sigma approach could obtain better performances in their product development than non users.