Overlapping and communication policies in product development

Shorter product life cycles in many industries impel firms to accelerate the product development process. Overlapping development stages, combined with frequent information exchange, is commonly regarded as a core technique for faster product development. However, overlapping and communication require additional resources and can be costly. We investigate the time-cost tradeoffs involved in concurrent product development to determine the optimal overlapping and communication strategies. The methodology was applied to a refrigerator development process in order to illustrate its utility.