Purchasing's Role in Product Development: The Case for Time‐Based Strategies

Aggressive global and domestic competition, accelerated technological advances, and market demands are catalysts in the thrusts to reduce product‐to‐market elapsed times. These developments have created the need for competitive firms to consider time‐based strategies as a potential solution to the shorter time‐to‐market requirements of today's customers. The authors suggest that purchasing can play a more active role in the new product development process through its participation in a cooperative multi‐disciplinary team approach. A team structure with the capabilities to reduce the new product development cycle is presented. In addition, the article introduces an organizational structure that facilitates purchasing's contribution to the success of time‐based product development strategies.