method for the optimization of product development resource allocation

This thesis presents a model designed to optimize the allocation of corporate resources required for the success of a product in the marketplace. The product development resources used in the model are: market research, applied research, product design, cost reduction and advertising. The key goals of this thesis are to provide industry with a usable tool: (1) Implement strategic plans through effective budgeting; (2) Optimize both short and long term profits; (3) Evaluate the impact of resource inter-dependencies; (4) Enable accountability that leads to goal achievement and checks unnecessary growth; (5) Remove much of the negative political and emotional variability; (6) Easily adapt to internal and external changes; (7) Output a specific allocation for each resource as a percentage of sales; (8) Output an estimate of future profitability. Genetic Algorithms are particularly well suited for this application because an exact optima is not required and the search space can be extremely large, complex, and non-linear.