The development of new products, which shall fulfill the customer needs, is a strategic activity for the organizations sustainability. This research has the intention of comparing and evaluating the maturity level of the product development process, at two automotive plants in the Southern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Some of the processes characteristics are discussed, as well as the evaluation model, which is based on the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) criteria, and the results of the research, which investigated the level of maturity along with 47 representatives from the studied companies, are hereby presented. This study revealed the existence of gaps in the PDP structure, with several practices and tools being used in a non-integrated way, having according to the executives, room for improvement in order to make them more complete, and powerful enough to leverage the market and the financial organization results.
Product development; maturity models; quality; CMMI
