BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - June 6, 2007) - Manufacturers must develop new products
efficiently to meet market demands for product innovation in a rapid,
cost-effective way. To this end, Best-in-Class companies identified in the
recently published "Lean Product Development Benchmark Report" from
Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (
NYSE:
HHS), find that they are
bringing products to market 25% faster than their competitors, on average.
By leveraging Lean concepts proven in manufacturing, such as elimination of
non-value-added "waste" and variability in the design process, the
Best-in-Class are able to hit key metrics such as product launch dates,
development cost, product cost, product revenue and quality on an average
of 80%, versus average companies that only meet these goals 60% of the
time.
"A full 69% of Best-in-Class companies are taking advantage of Lean
fundamentals and principles (70% vs 35% of both average and laggard
companies) in combination with proven best practices in product
development," notes Jim Brown, Vice President of Aberdeen's Product
Innovation and Engineering research and report author. "In fact, these top
performing companies are deriving real value from their Lean product
development programs, with 53% more productive product development time
averaged per employee than average manufacturers."
This report is made available to the public, in part, by the underwriting
support of Atos Consulting and PTC.
For a complimentary copy of this report, please visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4009
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information -- Opportunity -- Insight -- Engagement --
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617)723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Jim Brown
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(610) 565-6302
Jim.Brown@aberdeen.com