Title: CLIMB: maturity assessment model for design and engineering processes

Authors: Monica Rossi; Sergio Terzi

Addresses: Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini, 4b, 20156, Milano, Italy ' Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini, 4b, 20156, Milano, Italy

Abstract: In order to deliver products successfully, companies can choose between vast amounts of best practices to apply in their product development. However product development processes are still wasteful in practice. With the aim of creating awareness between practitioners on the meaning of product development best practices, and to propose how a company could measure its maturity in product development activities, this paper proposes CLIMB: a maturity assessment model based on prevalent product development best practices from literature. Additionally, the paper proposes the results of an empirical data collection in 2012-2013 within the GeCo Observatory initiative in Italy, which gathered data through more than 100 semi-structured face-to-face interviews from Italian and international companies using the CLIMB model. The result is that the tool is effective and further research has been stimulated to understand which circumstances lead the choice of certain best practices over others.

Keywords: design best practices; engineering best practices; design process; engineering processes; product development; maturity modelling; best practice; benchmarking; CLIMB; maturity assessment; Italy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2017.082998

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2017 Vol.10 No.1, pp.20 - 43

Received: 06 Mar 2016
Accepted: 15 Oct 2016
Published online: 17 Mar 2017 *

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