Product maintenance and improvement

Planning the project

In order to stay above rivals, the company needs to ensure that its products and solutions are enhanced and updated on a regular basis, and have all the functionalities as expected by the customers. Most organizations, especially software development companies, focus their spending on research and development because they understand that innovative products and services are key factors to the revenue growth. At the same time, they also know it is equally crucial to be focused on the existing products in order to sustain current revenue streams through product maintenance and improvement. Product maintenance is vital to ensure that revenue from the production and sales of existing product range are not lost and customers are not disappointed with it. Product improvement allows companies to increase commercial life of products and keep them ahead of the competition by giving extra features, improving its performance or making it cheaper to produce, etc.

R&D department is responsible for planning tasks for product maintenance and improvement. The planning process is based on conducted marketing researches, received customer requests and own researches. The project “Product maintenance and improvement” is aimed to find out what should be added and fix in current product version basing on customer feedback and researches. The project may have such tasks:

• Gather research and feedback data
• Develop improvement concept
• Create specification and prototype
• Test prototype through multiple iterations
• Approve prototype
• Create new modified product
• Test product through customer feedback
• Make additional amendment to product
• Launch modified product
• Build and submit report

During this project R&D team looks for solution which would meet customer needs and increase product value. The team leader should carefully plan each task in the project which could be reached by using VIP Task Manager. The software allows to set task due dates and create the project schedule. In Calendar View the team leader can plan project for a week or a month and use daily organizer to distribute workload more effectively. All documentation, images, request and tables needed for the project planning could be attached to the tasks as files or hyperlinks.

Keeping the project on track During the development process the team leader should keep the project on track and manage the team performance. If the project is overdue or delayed for some reason, the company will lose profits, and customer satisfaction may decline as the new product is postponed. That’s why it is vital for the company that the product improvement project will be completed on time and without delays.VIP Task Manager allows to ensure the project fulfilment according to schedule by tracking task progress and controlling employee performance. The program shows task progress in real time and the team members can quickly communicate with each other. VIP Task Manager allows users to set task reminders which significantly simplifies the project tracking.  Notification system shows current progress and points to upcoming deadlines and procrastinated tasks. The program makes it easy to track task lists by using filters. The team leader can filter tasks by Date Started and Date Completed. The “Time Left” column shows the time available for completing a task, so the team leader can assess whether the task will be overdue.

Reporting the project Report on the product maintenance and improvement project shows what work has been done. In general, the results of the project show the level of enhancement for the new product and what expectations are met. By using VIP Task Manager, at the end of the project the team leader can create report on the tasks in HTML or text view. He can customize the report by selecting which tasks attributes are to be included. For example, it may be such attributes as General, Assignment, History, Notes, etc. In the task field “Comments” the team leader can leave his conclusion on the project and include it into the report. The HTML report can be easily published on web site of the company so all stakeholders may watch the project results.

1. Research and development department staff
2. Research and development department functions
3. Researches for and development of new products
4. >> Product maintenance and improvement
5. Quality and regulatory compliance