A Methodology for Evaluating the Adoption of Knowledge and Innovation Management Tools in a Product Development Process

Author(s):  
Monica Bordegoni ◽  
Gaetano Cascini ◽  
Stefano Filippi ◽  
Ferruccio Mandorli

The efforts made by a company to focus on the manufacturing process to minimize production costs are not any more sufficient to launch competitive products on the market. In recent years, the industry has focused on the integration and optimization of the phases of the product development process and on the introduction of innovations in the attempt to tackle and solve the above mentioned issues. The paper presents the results of a research project whose aim is to study a methodology for the evaluation of the impact and costs related to the adoption of new and innovative technologies for knowledge and innovation management within currently implemented companies’ product development processes (As-Is process).

Author(s):  
Amanda Bligh ◽  
Manbir Sodhi

Even though the literature on product and process development is extensive, not much attention has been devoted to categorizing the product development process itself. Existing work on product development processes such as Total Design, Integrated Product and Process Design among others advocate common approaches that should be followed throughout the organization, without any consideration of product characteristics. In this paper we review several existing development methodologies. Extensions of these are categorized by their applicability to different classes of products. We propose that development processes should be matched to product attributes and organization goals. Towards this end, we associate development processes along with their components such as House of Quality, Robust Design, TRIZ etc. with goals such as time to market, customer needs satisfaction, intellectual property generation, protection and exploitation, quality, product cost and others. We examine the impact of this association on the development process itself and propose guidelines for constructing specific processes associated with one or more goals. Tools and benchmarks for various applications are discussed, along with some case studies on the design of different development processes.


Author(s):  
Wei Min Wang ◽  
Frauke Mörike ◽  
Jannis Hergesell ◽  
Nina Baur ◽  
Markus Feufel ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge is a crucial factor in state-of-the-art product development. It is often provided by stakeholders from divers disciplinary and individual backgrounds and has to be integrated to create competitive products. Still, it is not fully understood, how knowledge is generated, transformed, transferred and integrated in complex product development processes. To investigate the dynamic interrelations between involved stakeholders, applied knowledge types and related artefacts, researchers at the TU Berlin conducted and evaluated a student experiment to study basic phenomena of development projects. In relation to research methods and instruments applied in this experiment, various improvement opportunities were identified. In this paper, the experimental setting and its results are critically analysed from a social science perspective in order to generate improved research design. Based on the results of this analysis, a first set of methods and instruments from social sciences are identified that can be applied in further experiments. The goal is to develop a methodological toolbox that can be used to approach research on knowledge dynamics in product development.


Author(s):  
Hans Ottosson ◽  
Emma Hirschi ◽  
Christopher A. Mattson ◽  
Eric Dahlin

In this paper we present a starting point for designing for and/or assessing the social impact of engineered products. The starting point is a set of tables comprising products, their general functional characteristics, and the accompanying social impacts. We have constructed these tables by first extracting a set of social impact categories from the literature, then 65 products were qualitatively reviewed to find their social impact. The resulting product impact tables can be used at either the beginning of the product development process to decide what social impact to design for and discover product functions that lead to it, or later to qualitatively assess the social impact of a product being designed and/or to assess the impact of an existing product.


2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Albuquerque Cunha ◽  
Jarina dos Passos Silva ◽  
Aline Capanema de Barros ◽  
Eduardo Romeiro

Revista Foco ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ricardo Oselame Schiochet

O presente artigo pretende investigar de que forma as mudanças no comportamento do mercado e o crescimento da consciência ambiental tem feito com que os consumidores mudem sua postura e exijam das empresas uma readequação de processos com vistas a adotar métodos de gestão mais alinhados com a questão da sustentabilidade e principalmente dos impactos ambientais de suas ações. Sendo assim, o principal objetivo deste artigo é compreender de que maneira empresas de diferentes segmentos estão implementando os conceitos e ferramentas de ecodesign em seus processos de desenvolvimento de produto. Para tanto, foi realizado um levantamento teórico em periódicos da área, além de um estudo exploratório de campo baseado em entrevistas em profundidade, que mostrou que a motivação das empresas para a adoção de práticas de ecodesign ainda é limitada a cumprir exigências legais, ou como forma de redução de custos. Sob uma perspectiva mercadológica percebe-se que o marketing exerce pouca influência na relação entre o ecodesign e o processo de desenvolvimento de produtos.   This article intends to investigate how changes in market behavior and the growth of environmental awareness have made consumers to change their posture and demand from companies a process readjustment with a view to adopt management methods more in line with sustainability and especially the environmental impacts. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to understand how companies from different segments are implementing ecodesign concepts and tools in their product development processes. For that, a theoretical survey was carried out, as well as an exploratory field study based on in-depth interviews, which showed that the motivation of companies for the adoption of ecodesign practices is still limited to complying legal requirements, or as way of reducing costs.  From a marketing perspective, it is perceived that marketing has little influence on the relationship between ecodesign and product development process.


Author(s):  
Gritt Ahrens ◽  
Oliver Tegel

Abstract An approach to support the appropriate definition, formulation and presentation of requirements obeying the needs of the employees is being presented. Classifiying the needs for information of the employees according to some characteristics, a guideline for how to promote the information needed by them can be developed. The goal is to ensure that everyone involved in the process — even the subcontractor — has the right information available in the right form at the right time. Defining requirements lists, splitting them into partial requirements lists for each area of the company, each process phase or each team, and then formulating these requirements and presenting them in an adequate way is the proceeding strived for. The result will be implemented into an information infrastructure to support the product development process continuously.


Author(s):  
Götz v. Esebeck ◽  
Oliver Tegel ◽  
Jeffrey L. Miller ◽  
Karl-Heinrich Grote

Abstract As companies become aware that they have to restructure their product development processes to survive global competition in the market, it is important that they evaluate which management methods and techniques are suitable to improve the performance of the process and which design methods can be integrated and be used efficiently. A combination of management methods like Total Quality Management (TQM), Simultaneous or Concurrent Engineering, and Lean Development can be adapted to meet the requirements of a company more than a single strategy. Interdisciplinary teamwork, cross-hierarchical communication, and delegation of work in addition to employee motivation changes the common attitude towards the work process in the company and integrates the staff more tightly into the process. Nowadays, there is tight cooperation between companies and their sub-contractors, as sub-contractors not only have to manufacture the part or sub-assembly, but often have to design it. Therefore, the product development process has to be defined in a way that the sub-contractors can be tightly integrated into the product development process. Additionally, it is important to break the product down into functionally separate modules during the conceptual phase of the process. If the interfaces between these functions are defined as specifications, these modules can easily be given to suppliers or to other teams inside the company for further development. The use of methods such as Design for Manufacture (DFM) or Design for Assembly (DFA) early during the development process, which utilize the knowledge of experts from manufacturing and assembly, results in a decreasing number of iterative loops during the design process and therefore reduces time-to-market. This cross-functional cooperation leads to improved quality of both processes and products. In this paper, different management methods to achieve the best improvement from the product development process are discussed. In addition, suitable design methods for achieving cost reduction, quality improvement, and reduction of time-to-market are presented. Finally, proposals for industry on methods to reorganize the Integrated Product Development (IPD) process based on actual findings are presented.


Author(s):  
Ville Kukko-Liedes ◽  
Maria Mikkonen ◽  
Tua Björklund

AbstractEstablished companies turn to new ventures for bolstering exploration activities, but we know relatively little of the product development processes of startups and new ventures and how different stakeholders are utilized in these. The current study investigated the product development activities and experiments of eight Finnish food and beverage ventures in a multiple case study based on 22 interviews. How the developed products fit into the existing portfolio and experience of the ventures seemed to define their enacted development process. Internal experimentation was a constant feature, although the type of experiments varied between different phases of the development process. External-facing experiments were less frequent and more for validation than concept generation. On the other hand, they also carried important market creation functionalities. The results suggest that more nuanced terminology around experimentation would be useful to determine what type of experiments serve different goals in the development process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-532
Author(s):  
Rachel Parker-Strak ◽  
Liz Barnes ◽  
Rachel Studd ◽  
Stephen Doyle

PurposeThis research critically investigates product development in the context of fast fashion online retailers who are developing “own label” fashion clothing. With a focus upon inputs, outputs, planning and management in order to comprehensively map the interplay of people, processes and the procedures of the product development process adopted.Design/methodology/approachQualitative research method was employed. Face-to-face semi structured in depth interviews were conducted with key informants from market leading fast fashion online retailers in the UK.FindingsThe major findings of this research demonstrate the disruptions in the product development process in contemporary and challenging fashion retailing and a new “circular process” model more appropriate and specific to online fast fashion businesses is presented.Research limitations/implicationsThe research has implications for the emerging body of theory relating to fashion product development. The research is limited to UK online fashion retailers, although their operations are global.Practical implicationsThe findings from this study may be useful for apparel product development for retailers considering an online and fast fashion business model.Originality/valueThe emergent process model in this study may be used as a baseline for further studies to compare product development processes.


2001 ◽  
Vol 05 (04) ◽  
pp. 517-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEIL ALDERMAN ◽  
ALFRED THWAITES ◽  
DAVID MAFFIN

Many current models of the product development process pay insufficient attention to the impact of project-level influences. This paper looks at the case of the engineering industry in which product development is seen to proceed in two very distinct ways: the traditional process in which development takes place "off-line", and the contract process in which development takes place as part of a contract to manufacture a product for a specific customer. Drawing on two recent studies of engineering product development projects, the paper looks at how project-level influences lead to differences in project organisation and management in terms of the particular project structure adopted and in the involvement of different disciplines, internal and external to the company. This has implications for the way in which companies should interpret generic prescriptions regarding product development.


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