국내 중소제조기업의 제품 개발 프로세스에 대한 애자일 방식의 적합성 연구:전문가 델파이 조사를 중심으로

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the new product development environment of manufacturing companies is becoming increasingly complex with the need to differentiate their products through software competency, demanding quick product release cycles and quick reflection of user feedback. Linear product development processes cannot support the iterative cycles and external collaboration that characterize today’s current competitive environment and product development efforts. Having already widely utilized in the software industry for past decades, the agile methods has been found to make various benefits by applying them to software development processes over the last decade. Therefore, in recent years, many manufacturing companies have shown great interest in securing product competitiveness and development agility by applying agile method as an alternative to existing development methods. In this study, we analyze the feasibility and applicability of applying the agile method to Korean small and medium-sized manufacturing companies using the expert Delphi method. This paper found that most experts have agreed that agile strategy and incremental adoption of agile practices-especially SCRUM method are essential to secure agility of product development for enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs. Based on the results of the Delphi survey, not only academic implications but also practical implications were derived. This study shows that agile methods can be selected by local SME manufacturing companies as the key strategies to cope with the fourth industrial revolution, and SCRUM agile practices can be employed to the SME manufacturing enterprises first among other agile practices to yield the positive performance and other advantages quickly.