Design management is an application of project management methods that has been studied for less than a decade, but which, from literature, appears to be a key factor to product performance especially in manufacturing companies. This work presents the results of an empirical measurement and its multivariate correlation on twenty-one Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of the plastic packaging sector. Based on this analysis, seven factors were found that allow the quantitative translation of a set of innovation capabilities related to design and product development management.