Criticality in new product development processes

In new product development processes (NPD), the traditional concept of "criticality" in activity networks appears to be insufficient. In addition to individual activity criticality, one may be interested in identifying the relative importance of sets of interdependent activities (loops) to the overall project performance. This work complements current criticality concepts by quantifying the criticality of iterative loops using an analogue of the risk priority number (RPN) commonly used in FMEA. The proposed methodology for determining loop criticality for NPD processes is illustrated through an example case study. The paper concludes by describing further extensions and other avenues for future research.