Self-Assessment for Evaluating and Improving the Product Development Processes in SMEs

Effective and efficient processes characterize successful companies in mechanical engineering and related industrial sectors. Methods and tools of Virtual Prototyping and Simulation (VPS) become more and more accepted in these processes. The integration of these methods and tools into the processes and the PDM/PLM infrastructure of the company is a success factor in the development of complex technical systems. Especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) often run isolated applications that are insufficiently integrated into the development process and the PDM/PLM infrastructure.This paper introduces the VPS-Benchmark — an adaptable maturity model for performance evaluation and improvement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with focus on VPS. By giving an overview on existing approaches for performance evaluation and improvement, we point out the demand for a new maturity approach meeting the requirements of SMEs. The new maturity model will then be introduced. After explaining the basic concept of the model, we describe its development and application. The model offers a systematic performance improvement by giving concrete measures. These measures are derived from the comparison of current performance and a company-specific target state. This individual target state is determined by the company-class. The whole approach is based on a software-supported questionnaire that allows for a self-assessment in SMEs.Copyright © 2012 by ASME