New product development has a deceptively simple goal: take a concept from idea to market as quickly, effectively, and profitably as possible.
The reality is a process loaded with friction points:
Siloed teams working sequentially instead of in parallel, change orders that take weeks to route, BOM blind spots that surface as component shortages mid-production, and poor supplier handoffs that result in contract manufacturers building to the wrong revision.
NPD is the end-to-end process of bringing a product from concept through design, engineering, supplier collaboration, and market launch. The ideal NPD flow looks like this:
Concept → Design → Engineering → Supplier Collaboration → Manufacturing Ramp → Launch → Customer
Each arrow in that sequence is a handoff. And every handoff is an opportunity for delay, miscommunication, or IP exposure, especially when each stage runs on a different system.
For Oracle Agile PLM users, those opportunities are unavoidable gaps built into the foundation.
Propel was built to collapse those gaps: seamlessly connecting product, quality, supplier, and commercial teams on a single platform so every stage of NPD moves at the speed the market actually demands.
Here's what that means across the teams that feel the friction most.
1. Launch Delays Built Into Every Handoff
Who it impacts: Product & Engineering Leaders
Siloed development isn't just inefficient; it's a compounding problem. When design, engineering, procurement, and manufacturing each work in their own systems, the handoffs between them become the bottleneck.
Teams work sequentially when they could be working in parallel. Change orders get routed manually through inboxes. By the time a revision reaches the contract manufacturer, it may not be the latest one.
Propel eliminates these gaps by making the product record the single source of truth for every team at every stage:
- Automated change management workflows route approvals in parallel rather than sequence, slashing cycle times from weeks to days
- Real-time BOM visibility surfaces component cost, availability, and quality risk before a shortage becomes a production crisis
- Controlled supplier portals ensure contract manufacturers always build to the current revision, with access limited to exactly what they need to see
- Cross-functional collaboration embedded in the product record means design, engineering, procurement, and quality are working from the same data, not reconciling separate copies of it
When the handoffs disappear, so does the lag they create.
2. Half the Workday Spent on Work That Shouldn't Exist
Who it impacts: Power Users and Engineers
The figure gets cited often enough to have become background noise: engineers spend more than half their time searching for, recreating, or chasing down data rather than doing the work they were hired to do.
The cause is predictable: multiple systems that don't talk to each other, a UI that rewards persistence over efficiency, and no single place to find what the current state of a product actually is.
Propel gives engineers the data they need where they need it.
Component cost, risk, and availability are visible directly in the BOM, not in a separate procurement tool that requires someone else to query.
Real-time dashboards surface project health, open changes, and at-risk components without requiring a report to be built from scratch.
And because Propel's modern interface is designed for the way engineers actually work, adoption doesn't require a training program. It happens naturally.
When high-risk components are flagged early using Approved Manufacturer Lists (AML) integrated directly into the BOM, teams can identify alternates and second sources before a shortage stalls the design.
When quality issues from prior programs are visible during NPD, they don't get designed into the next product.
MORE: Wondering what an engineering team's day looks like after leaving Agile behind? Read our Life After Agile ebook.
3. The Integration Tax on Every New Product
Who it impacts: IT and Technical Teams
The IT cost of fragmented NPD infrastructure isn't always visible until something breaks.
Each point solution added to manage a stage of the product lifecycle is another integration to build, another access control schema to govern, another surface area exposed to yet more security vulnerabilities.
For organizations running Oracle Agile PLM, the Java-based client architecture is riddled with known security risks, particularly in their supplier collaboration web clients that are central to NPD execution.
Propel's single-platform approach eliminates these risks structurally:
Who it impacts: Executive and Finance Leaders
First-to-market advantage, premium pricing, and market share captured early are real financial outcomes that late launches forfeit.
And the cost compounds: delays in launch mean later revenue recognition, higher costs from rework and expedited production, and the compounding margin pressure of components sourced reactively rather than strategically.
Propel makes the financial levers of NPD visible and controllable:
- BOM cost rollup gives finance and product leaders accurate, real-time cost visibility throughout development—not just at the point when a quote is due
- NPI pipeline dashboards surface project health, phase gate status, and at-risk milestones before they become schedule slips
- Component cost and availability data integrated directly into the BOM means sourcing decisions happen proactively—before a single-sourced critical part becomes a production crisis
- Parallel workflows compress change cycle times, so engineering decisions don't wait in approval queues while the launch date holds steady on the calendar
Premium pricing belongs to the team that gets there first. Propel is built to be that team's infrastructure.
5. Supplier Gaps That Only Surface After Production Starts
Who it impacts: Procurement and Legal
Procurement's worst-case scenario in NPD is finding out about a sourcing problem after production has already started: a sole-sourced critical component with a 20-week lead time, a supplier who hasn't been formally qualified, a contract manufacturer working from an old revision that got superseded three ECOs ago.
These aren't failures of attention. They're failures of visibility.
Propel brings procurement into the product record from the start:
- Approved Manufacturer Lists (AML) integrated directly into the BOM mean component decisions and sourcing implications are visible to procurement as the design evolves—not after it's finalized
- Supplier qualification, onboarding, and re-evaluation workflows support production ramp without requiring a separate supplier management system
- Scorecards and performance dashboards provide continuous and real-time visibility into on-time delivery, first-time-right rates, and supplier health
- Role-based access & sharing controls let procurement and legal collaborate securely with strategic suppliers without exposing IP beyond what each relationship warrants
When procurement is embedded in NPD rather than downstream of it, the sourcing decisions that determine launch success get made at the right time.
MORE: How exposed is your NPD process if you stay on Agile? Take the quiz to find out.
What It Looks Like in Practice
Modernizing NPD processes leads to proven business outcomes.
5+ weeks cut from every prototype delivery.
Formlabs, a 3D printing technology developer and manufacturer, was navigating a fast-growing product portfolio across multiple disconnected systems. NPI coordination across time zones, language barriers, and separate tools had become unmanageable. With Propel, Formlabs eliminated 5+ weeks from every prototype delivery and released 150+ ECOs in their first month. Read case study.
Change orders cut from 50 days to 30.
VAST Data, the AI operating system company, needed a PLM that could keep pace with rapid product iteration and tight supplier collaboration. Their prior solution required external help—and added cost—for every configuration change, blocking the team from moving quickly. With Propel, change orders dropped from 50 days to under 30, BOM updates reach contract manufacturers seamlessly, and order status that once took 20–30 minutes to surface is now instantaneous. Read case study.
74% faster time to market
Savant Systems, a leading consumer electronics brand providing smart home and energy solutions, replaced its aging on-premises PLM with Propel, unifying product and customer data on a single cloud platform. By centralizing product records and integrating with Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Commerce Cloud, the team eliminated infrastructure overhead and enabled real-time access across all functions—accelerating time-to-market by 74%. Read case study.
Products That Launch on Time, at Margin, Every Time
New product development doesn't fail in dramatic moments; it erodes in small ones.
The approval that sat in an inbox for three days. The component shortage nobody saw coming. The contract manufacturer who built to the wrong revision because the portal hadn't been updated.
For Oracle Agile PLM users, these aren't edge cases. They're the cost of an architecture that was never designed to unify the people, processes, and data that NPD actually requires.
Propel was built to make them the exception, not the operating model.
See what NPD looks like on a platform built for it. Get a demo of Propel Software today.
FAQ
Q: What is new product development (NPD) in manufacturing?
A: New product development (NPD) is the end-to-end process of bringing a product from concept through design, engineering, supplier collaboration, manufacturing ramp-up, and market launch. It encompasses every stage of the product lifecycle before commercialization, requiring cross-functional coordination across engineering, procurement, quality, and operations teams.
Q: Why is Oracle Agile PLM slow for new product development?
A: Oracle Agile PLM's architecture requires separate systems for quality management, supplier collaboration, and commercial operations, creating siloed handoffs, manual change routing, and BOM visibility gaps that slow every stage of NPD. Change orders routed through Java Process Extensions and supplier portals with known security vulnerabilities compound the structural delays.
Q: How does Propel speed up time to market?
A: Propel unifies product, quality, and supplier data on a single platform, replacing sequential handoffs with parallel workflows. Automated change management routes approvals simultaneously, BOM cost and component risk are visible in real time, and contract manufacturers and suppliers access a secure cloud portal that always reflects the current revision, eliminating the most common sources of launch delay.
Q: How does Propel help manage component risk and BOM cost during NPD?
A: Propel integrates Approved Manufacturer Lists (AML) directly into the BOM, giving engineering and procurement real-time visibility into component availability, cost, and risk during the design phase, not after it. High-risk or single-sourced components are flagged early, enabling teams to identify alternates and second sources before a shortage becomes a production crisis.
Q: What industries benefit most from a unified NPD platform?
A: Any manufacturer with complex, multi-stage product development processes benefits, including high-tech hardware, medical devices, consumer goods, and industrial equipment. Organizations managing global supplier networks, frequent engineering changes, and parallel development workstreams see the greatest compression in cycle times and launch delays.
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