‘Handing off’ NPD projects in Japanese electronics companies is usually done by transferring research staff from the corporate to the divisional lab (this is considered a promotion and is accompanied by a pay rise) – this flow of people is the key to technology transfer and it also means that manufacturing level employees are engineers, allowing more flexibility in design and specification up until right before production.
Example: From a comparative study of Japanese and U.S. electronics manufacturers.
Source: Westney, D.E. and Sakakibara, K. (1986). Designing the designers: computer R&D in the United States and Japan. Technology Review, April, pp. 24-31, 68-69.