Product development (PD) is the process by which a product comes to market. Among the most complex of human endeavors, PD involves many distinct disciplines—manufacturing, marketing, design, finance, sales, strategic planning, and more. The variety and complexity of these specializations require that PD must be shared by many persons and organizations. Much PD research has focused on these disciplines individually, and de-emphasized the interfaces between them. Such research may provide a thorough understanding of a specialized area, but cannot guide the larger process.

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A PD strategy directed primarily by marketing, for example (or engineering, or finance, etc.), may optimize the process locally but jeopardize it overall.

Healthy product development requires creative interplay at the interfaces between disciplines. Because product development spans traditional organizational boundaries, CIPD shapes its research around the interplay between the technical, business, and social forces at the interfaces where people and organizations pass information.

Our faculty, staff, and students from MIT's engineering and management schools join with sponsors in many industries—automobile, aircraft, heavy industry, precision machinery, consumer products, software, and microelectronics—to understand how boundaries between disciplines can become gateways to successful product development.