Abstract:
The product life-cycle marketing approach is
a concept that describes the sales and profit margin of a
given product category over a prolonged period - from
lust to dust. The concept holds that a product's sales and
profits change over time in a predictable manner-at least
in the four distinct major stages of introduction, growth,
maturity, and decline. It is important to understand
product life-cycles curves to make the best use of
engineering resources. The paper presents figures that
characterize various industry products and their lifecycle curves. The amount of development money invested
in a product intended for rapid market penetration, for
example, is considerably less than for a one destined to a
long-term stable, mature market. In this context we
illustrate the types of feedback used by engineering
during the various stages of product life-cycle. Finally, we
consider that engineers responsible for product or
process improvement must recognize what phase of the
product life-cycle is in to practice the most effective
research.
