I believe that the most expensive is Introduction Stage, because the company is launching a new product. Further, the size of market for the product is initially low and thus sales are low. Costs of research and development, testing, and marketing needed to launch the product can be very high. In the Growth Stage is characterized by strong growth in sales and profits. The company can also begin to benefit. This makes it possible for the business to invest more money in promoting their product to maximize the growth stage. In Maturity Stage, the product is established and the aim for the manufacturer is now to maintain the market share they have built up. This is also the time to consider modifications and improvements. And for the Decline Stage, the market of the product will begin to shrink. This could result from a saturated market or because consumers are switching to an alternative. However, companies can still profit by potentially using less expensive methods to produce goods.

That is a great response gh56, but I disagree with using less expensive methods to produce, for they would be out of spec. This could lead to complete decline of the company. The product must always meet specs established and validated.

I think the most expensive part will always be the research and development phase as a lot of money is wasted by ideas that don't work or even scaling the idea up and down. Money is spent from testing, contracting, materials just the general initial discovery. After that once he product is set the cost can be strict as it's just a game of cheap resources and labor

Agreeing with everyone above, I will add that yes some products do not follow the traditional path. Some products may not cost you a lot during any of the phases and end up giving you the most increase in sales and profit at the end. While some products may be very expensive during the research and development phase and you think everything is in place but they end up never making it to the market during to a issue with the product. This is where I believe a project manager emphasizes on the initial phase and making sure everything is in place and resolve any potential problems that may arise in the later phases. So its not always about the expense in the phase, its about making sure each phase is accurately completed.

I agree with the above responses- R&D/Development phase seems to be the most expensive stage. The reason being that although one product may make it to the market and produce a great deal of profit for the company, there were many products similar to it, leading up to that point, that did not make it and cost the company a lot of money in time, resources, materials, storage, data analysis, contract manufacturing, and market analysis. For example, a bandage with infused anti-biotic may have gone through dozens of prototypes before deciding on that one since the size, color, shape, material, and antibiotic type & dose were analyzed prior to sale and this doesn’t include the paperwork that would be required to go with it.

For the product life cycle, I do think that the introduction around the launch time frame can be very costly. At this point, the company places all the effort into the marketing and preparing for launch to have the adequate potential customer’s being aware of the product. It is tough because at this point the company is still not sure how the product will perform but the product is basically almost ready for purchase. Also take into account that if this part doesn’t do well, it will directly affect the growth and will not match the forecasted sales values.

As others have mentioned, the development phase is the most expensive due to the time and effort from the design generation stage. Additionally, during the development phase, any pre-clinicial trials or clinical trials may cost up to more than millions of dollars. It takes money to find animals and human subjects to test the medical device on as well as monitoring the safety and efficacy over a certain period of time. The development phase is the longest phase which makes sense as to why more money would be put in during that time. Finding the right parts from vendors to make the optimal product requires quite a bit of research and innovation, which takes time. As well as once the product has been made, the money put forth during the 510k submission as well as PMA, and IDE continues to add more procedures which adds to the cost.

Hi All,

I would agree that in many products the R&D/Development can be very expensive. However I would say with many products that the introduction phase can be just as costly. If a product needs a lot of marketing to get into the market, or has a lot competition, the correct marketing tools are needed to successfully introduce the product and get it started. This can be an extremely costly task that may, in some cases, outweigh the R&D/Development.

-Andrew Nashed

In my opinion, I feel that Research and Development is probably your highest investment, you want to ensure that the product you are developing meets specific standards and criteria's, a project after designed can undergo trials, where they fail or pass. If lets say they do pass clinical trials, the ultimate question would be how much money would be needed to manufacture. It could be one of the best products within industry but if its way to expensive to produce, than the company can kill the project or they can just put it in a "limbo" state until a method to decrease manufacturing cost is implemented. This may take a while to do.

Chris

Product development phase is the most important role in the product life cycle. As Dr. Simon mentioned, in the development phase you start to do:
Market Research, Design Control, Design Transfer, Approval, and IQ OQ & PQ. Because of the design control in the development phase, and design control is not only the right thing to do but also its very important to ensure safety and the product meet the user needs in the design control. Do a final check of your technical documentation, you may need to make updates.
Also in the development phase, make sure you have plans in place for “Post Market”.

Of all the phases involved in the product life cycle, as others have stated, the planning and development stage would seem to be the most expensive. During this stage in the product life cycle, the company is constantly working to make their product unique and fix any issues that arise. This is more cost into developing the product. The product will typically more than one try to create the final version. As a result, the product will need to be constantly redone and fixed until it fulfills the needs of the customer and the purpose the company intended. There is also the issue of making sure the market is at a good spot to release such a product. There is more money involved in the launch, to make sure that the product is advertised properly and becomes a success.

Each of the product life cycle has its own characteristics.The introduction stage is most expensive stage in the life span of a product .As products have a limited life span so most of companies invest heavily on new product to run successful business.When company introduces new product to the buyers the production process is new and sales of the products are few.Even though sales are slow ,but it will rise gradually with time.For a new product cost of research and development ,customer testing and marketing needs will be high.

I find that the development phase can be the more expensive phase as not every investment made during this phase will ultimately have a pay off or even lead down the path that the company wants to go down. This part of the product life cycle phase costs a company a significant amount of money because there are many ideas being pursued and researched, and this would consume many resources.

The development phase is the most expensive phase within product life cycle. The development phase requires testing and creation of the products. Within an undergrad course that I took, we had to develop a product that fulfills a current market gap. We followed the product life cycle and the most cost came from the development phase. Our ideas of how a test would be conducted would fail and we would have to spend more money to fix the issue or to retest the creation. The development phase is very crucial in the success of a product, therefore the expenses also will be high.