Melhoria do processo de desenvolvimento de produtos através da gestão do conhecimento

Abstract

The product development process (PDP) has become an increasingly important factor to raise companies’ competitive edge. High uncertainty and risk levels, as well as the considerate amount of important decisions made during the PDP design stages, directly affect the final cost of products and, as a result, determine the company’s success. Given its importance, several studies have sought to improve the design stages of product development. In this context, although knowledge management tools have been applied to the product development process, there is no structured and consolidated methodology that brings together project and knowledge management concepts and that is dedicated to product development, which has shown to be a promising fact. That said, the objective of the present study was to develop a hybrid systematic, embracing knowledge and project management, for the purpose of managing the product development process. In order to achieve this objective, a bibliographic research about the related subjects was carried out in the first place. Then, the project management tools state of the art was investigated, and the application of knowledge management tools in the PDP was analyzed through articles and case studies. Afterwards, a management methodology was developed, starting from the project management basic structure and emphasizing on knowledge management. As part of the development of the proposed methodology, the creation of a software prototype was began in Excel, looking forward to demonstrate both the feasibility and applicability of the systematic. Finally, a semi-structured questionnaire was applied to evaluate the importance and relevance of the conducted study.