Product development processes in small and middle-sized enterprises-identification and elimination of inefficiency caused by product variety

As SMEs face a limitation of their resources, it is crucial to monitor the strategy of product variety management and the interplay of project work and day-to-day business. Competiveness of small and middle-sized enterprises (SME) correlates with recognizing customer needs and being able to efficiently react to it. This paper aims to achieve the former by identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in product development processes. Thus, a procedure is introduced to reduce development effort by successfully handling the necessary product variety. Further goals are to avoid sources of inefficiency - to improve the interplay between development process and everyday work - and to gain consciousness about how the processes are lived within the enterprise and how product variety impacts on the day-to-day-business.