It seems to have become fashionable to use the term 'innovation' for everything that a few years ago would have been called 'new product development'. However, NPD is only one aspect of innovation activity. 'Innovation process' is often incorrectly used interchangeably with 'new product development process'.
The process of systematically researching, testing and producing new products and product variations.
Promotes new products and services to the market, creates new products to further penetrate the market, identifies new product opportunities for existing customers and expanding customer base.
The process a product goes through before introduction, involving seven phases: idea generation, screening ideas, concept testing, business analysis, product development, test marketing and commercialisation. p. 299
The creation of new products needed for growth or to replace those in the decline stage of their life-cycle; the stages in the new product development process are commonly listed as idea generation; screening; concept development and testing; the formulation of marketing strategies; business analysis; production; market testing; and commercialization.
In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process : one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering ; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share.