Challenges of product management in manufacturing industry

This chapter examines the challenges in the separate fields of the manufacturing industry from the product management point of view. At the same time, a survey of the various fields of the industry is created from a slightly wider perspective. There are three case examples in this chapter that look into three very different product environments and the special features or demands in such businesses for product management:

A (bulk) product to be manufactured in great volumes

A product that is customer-specifically configured or customized

A unique engineering product

These different product environments can also be referred to the traditional tri-fold division of products in the manufacturing industry, into A, B and C categories (figure 34).

Category A – build to order or build to stock (BTO/BTS) no design work or engineering needed.

ategory B – usually build to order, a little engineering or use of mass customization is needed.

Category C – always build to order. The product is built strictly according to the unique needs of the customer and a very large amount of design work is needed.