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MN50585: New product development

[Page last updated: 05 August 2021]

Academic Year: 2021/2
Owning Department/School: School of Management
Credits: 6 [equivalent to 12 CATS credits]
Notional Study Hours: 120
Level: Masters UG & PG (FHEQ level 7)
Period:
Semester 2
Assessment Summary: CW 100%
Assessment Detail:
  • Coursework (CW 100%)
Supplementary Assessment:
Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations)
Requisites:
Aims: Product innovation is considered as a critical component of sustainable success of a business operation. Rapid product development creates significant advantage for firms in this increasingly turbulent environment. The development of commercially viable new products is determined by different factors.
New Product Development: enables students to understand the critical factors that impact new product outcomes and the firms' product strategy. Students will consider a number of tools and concepts to develop effective new product development plan, and expected to be able to apply them and demonstrate understanding of these, during the unit.
This dynamic course tests students' critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making abilities. It also focuses on fostering students' skills in strategic thinking and strengthens the foundations of their knowledge in order to sharpen their application and analytical abilities.
At the end of this unit, students will be expected to be able to not only understand the key concept with regard to new product development, but also develop a comprehensive new product development plan to include a detailed analysis of all aspects of new product development process, such as consumer tastes, design rationale, marketing communication and supply chain management.

Learning Outcomes: On completion of this module students will be able to:
* Understand the principles and precepts of new product development.
* Critically evaluate a firm's product strategy by applying these principles.
* Analyse and critically assess the implementation of new product development process and factors that may affect its effectiveness and efficiency.

Skills: Analytic and evaluative skills (T,F,A)
Ability to present compelling and coherent arguments (A)
Critical thinking (T,F,A)
Ability to apply functional and critical knowledge during the second stage of the unit, involving a simulation game (A).

Content: The course will contain a range of lectures, in-class assignments and case-studies and exercises for the following topics:
* Product innovation management
* New product development process
* Product strategy
* Product design
* Product portfolio management
* Research and development
* Marketing research/consumer behavior analysis
* Marketing strategy/marketing-manufacturing (supply-chain) integration
* Internal analysis (organisational resources, capabilities, and competencies)
* New product development planning, implementation, control and evaluation.

Programme availability:

MN50585 is Optional on the following programmes:

School of Management

Notes:

  • This unit catalogue is applicable for the 2021/22 academic year only. Students continuing their studies into 2022/23 and beyond should not assume that this unit will be available in future years in the format displayed here for 2021/22.
  • Programmes and units are subject to change in accordance with normal University procedures.
  • Availability of units will be subject to constraints such as staff availability, minimum and maximum group sizes, and timetabling factors as well as a student's ability to meet any pre-requisite rules.
  • Find out more about these and other important University terms and conditions here.