Search results

Some companies to aid the product development process have implemented a stage‐gate framework, as a high‐level representation of the activities required. Such a framework allows the development process to be closely monitored and controlled, using stages of work and review gates. Six different companies have been examined to show the variations in representation. Each approach was compared to a generic four‐staged framework. Companies which are organised mainly in cross‐functional teams adhere strongly to the four stages, namely a low‐phased approach. However, companies organised with a strong functional structure tend to have more phases and gates within each stage, i.e. a high‐phased approach. These additional phases tend to be placed late in the product development process rather than at the start where their effect would be greater. A generic representation of the product development process applicable to various organisations and industrial sectors, provides an architecture for carrying out any business process improvement project.

Existing literature clearly documents the importance of new product development to success of a manufacturing firm. Many examples of generic models of the process, including sequential, concurrent, and multiple convergent models, can be found. However, these models are of insufficient detail to provide an adequate foundation for redesigning the apparel product development process. The no‐interval coherently phased product development (NICPPD) model for apparel introduced in this paper documents apparel product development as a six phase process with multiple convergent points and coherently phased divisions. The NICPPD model provides for developing both product lines and individual products, developing seasonal lines and multiple seasons annually, and use of alternative development strategies including original design development, knock‐offs or take‐offs, and modification of existing products. Multiple applications for use of the NICPPD model by both researchers and practitioners in examining and improving the apparel product development process are identified.

This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the industry practice to guide the formation of support tools with a rigorous theoretical backing. Cross-functional teams are an essential component in new product development (NPD) of complex products to promote comprehensive coverage of product design, marketing, sales, support as well as many other activities of business. Efficient use of teams can allow for greater technical competency coverage, increased creativity, reduced development times and greater consideration of ideas from a variety of stakeholders. While academics continually aspire to propose methods for improved team composition, there exists a gap between research directions and applications found within industry practice.

Through interviewing product development managers working across a variety of industries, this paper investigates the common practices of team utilization in an organizational setting. Following these interviews, this paper proposes a conceptual two-dimensional management support model aggregating the primary drivers of team success and providing direction to systematically address features of team management and composition.

Based on this work, product managers are recommended to continually address the positioning of members throughout the entire NPD process. In the early stages, individuals are to be placed to work on project components with explicit consideration toward the perceived complexity of tasks and individual competency. Throughout the development process, individuals’ positions vary based on new information while continued emphasis is placed on maintaining a shared understanding.

Bridging the gap between theory and application within product development teams is a necessary step toward improved product develop. Industrial settings require practical solutions that can be applied economically and efficiently within their organization. Theoretical reflections postulated by academia support improved team design; however, to achieve true success, they must be applicable when considering product development.

This paper proposes an integrated approach for assessing innovation management practices using an innovation management assessment framework, with the application of the innovation management assessment framework at the incubation and firm level.

Innovation management assessment framework is developed, based on the literature review. An innovation management assessment framework toolkit for training innovation practitioners is proposed as the basis for the framework implementation in the industry. The main approach is to make close alignment of the design for lean six sigma phases within broader innovation and stage-gate model in the innovation management assessment framework.

The operationalization of the innovation management assessment framework is enabled and supported by an assessment framework and a toolkit for managing innovation.

A roadmap for innovation management and assessment of performance at incubatee/firm level.

It provides a tool for developing innovative products and services for incubatees in start-ups, thus fueling the economy. It also has applications for ongoing established businesses.

Innovation of new business development can be made through a well-designed and implemented innovation programme that is aligned with stage-gate and design for lean six sigma phases through the innovation management assessment framework.

This paper aims to investigate how various organizational interfaces between firms, units and functions, and the interplay between them, are developed and mobilized in product development processes.

The theoretical framework is based on the industrial network approach, including interactive resource development and the concept of organizational interfaces. A single case study is conducted at a world-leading industrial tool manufacturer, illustrating how resources are combined over time, crossing boundaries of firms, units and functions in the development of a hand-held digitalized tool for quality assurance in the production of cars. Data have been collected through semi-structured interviews, with additional data in the form of project reports, internal documents and practices for external collaboration.

In addition to inter-organizational interfaces, the study identifies a typology of scouting, embarking and integration interfaces at unit level (geographically spread units of one multinational corporation) and interpretation and reciprocal interfaces at function level. The conclusions show that these interfaces affect the outcome of three aspects of the product development process: product characteristics and functionality features, system integration and organizational network extent. Existing interfaces serve as a platform for developing interaction further and provide the interfaces with new content, thus moving between different types of interfaces. Product development processes also involve new interfaces where there was no previous interaction between the parties.

This research has implications for the interplay between interfaces in cases involving multiple external and internal actors in resource combining efforts.

External interactions between firms influence and impact internal activities and resources. Managers need to be aware of the complex interdependencies between external and internal interfaces and resources. Managing organizational interfaces is about both exploiting established interfaces and developing new ones. Consequently, existing interfaces may be activated differently to align with new interaction purposes, which, in turn, requires efforts to combine resources according to the new conditions.

Previous research contains a typology of organizational interfaces between customers and suppliers. The study expands on this research by identifying internal interfaces between units and functions.

In today's knowledge economy, a major challenge for the managers is to effectively link the knowledge management (KM) initiatives with the ever‐changing organizational needs. The problem arises due to disjoint strategic alignment between these two, which is mainly due to inappropriate KM framework and adoption of some quick‐fix solutions to achieve business results. Hence, for effective management and utilization of knowledge assets, KM initiative should be dovetailed to link with key organizational goals like new product development (NPD), customer satisfaction and manufacturing excellence. The purpose of this paper is to propose a suitable KM system.

This paper proposes an approach for KM system development to ensure a fit between the organizational needs during NPD and KM initiatives. Soft system methodology (SSM) has been adopted to design this framework.

This research identified a list of knowledge‐sharing methods, which help in intra‐level or inter‐level knowledge flow. The proposed framework highlights the hierarchal nature and bi‐directional flow of knowledge. Further, this work observed that there are two additional key enablers to effective knowledge management system – competency and infrastructure.

This work focuses on an auto‐component supplier in India. Therefore, this work is limited by the organizational culture, location, business model and the sector in which this research was done.

This paper suggests that a technical knowledge driven process like NPD has three strategic enablers – technology, people and process. The sustenance of the NPD process is affected by the balance among these enablers. Fundamentally, a comprehensive and integrative framework not only ensures a structured framework but also helps in better adoption due to stakeholders' buy‐in of the process.

Existing earlier supplier involvement (ESI) models mostly emphasize the product development perspective with limited attention to the process development dimension. Towards this end, this paper aims at a tailored framework for semiconductor manufacturing firms by taking into account the implementation of ESI in process development as well as product development.

A number of well‐recognized propositions are examined through a case study of MIC Semiconductors Asia. Based on observations from the case study, the problems of existing frameworks are analyzed and accordingly possible solutions are explored.

The case study reveals the importance of process development in ESI implementation. It is imperative to build up on some fundamentals of the company before ESI can be carried out successfully. Also observed is that the effectiveness of a supplier selection criterion should be gauged from the performance of the suppliers. It is also found out what type of relationships with suppliers are favorable to ESI, regardless whether the length of the relationship can be translated to trust in technical capability in practice.

Examining existing ESI models through a real case study sheds light on the practical application of ESI. In particular, the semiconductor manufacturing process is emphasized in addition to the general ESI focus on product development.

This paper aims to present a systematic review of design for six sigma (DFSS) methods applicable to the product development process (PDP) of durables goods and identify a research opportunity on the subject proposing integration of DFSS and a reference model for the PDP. In this way, through the analysis of the theoretical references identified in the scientific databases, it was possible to propose a conceptual model for the PDP oriented to the DFSS.

This paper is based on the theoretical framework presented in peer-reviewed scientific research papers during the period 2000 to 2018 on the theme DFSS applied in the PDP, as well as such as the product development tools/techniques and statistics addressed. By means of key words defined by the acronyms of DFSS methods (DMADOV, ICOV, DMEDI, IDOV, DDOV, PIDOV, DMADIC, DCCDI, DMADV, IDDOV, CDOV and DCOV), DFSS and the acronym DFSS. Applying Boolean expression during the conduction of the searches through the scientific evidence at the Brazilian scientific database platform (Capes database). This database platform is maintained by coordination for the improvement of higher education personnel, which including Emerald Insight (Emerald), Scopus (Elsevier), Science Direct, SpringerLink, Taylor Francis, Scielo (Web of Science), Wiley Online Library, Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), etc. It was obtained, by means of the searches, 269 papers related to subject DFSS, of which 18 papers had been critically selected for the composition of a conceptual model for the process of development of product guided to the DFSS.

This study presents a review of the literature (systematic review and content analysis) on DFSS and its effectiveness for the PDP. The DFSS methodology is disseminated in the scientific literature through a variety of methods that are often mistaken for the six sigma methodology – DMAIC, which is directed toward process improvement. The PDP integrated with the DFSS concepts contributes to eliminating possible failures during the design of a new product, directing to reduce costs and improve the quality of the product and process.

This paper presents a literature review that guided to a proposal of a preliminary conceptual model DFSS focused on the process of product development with the purpose of being a friendly model that meets the dynamics of the organizations and the expectations of the consumers.

Through the systematic review and content analysis, it was possible to observe that the DFSS methods applied to product development are not related to the PDP reference models available in the literature. In this way, the fusion of the concepts of the DFSS methods and PDP reference models for the construction and proposition of a preliminary conceptual model DFSS oriented to the process of product development intends to contribute in the development of new products with the reduction of time, reduction of the cost, competitive price and consumer satisfaction.

The key to successful project management is knowing how well the process is performing to prevent problems rather than fix them after they occur. Success measurement in product development has emphasized end‐result measures of overall project performance or economic value. The product development literature has largely ignored process performance (i.e., the measurement of how effectively the product development process is actually working). Process performance may be an early warning signal of downstream problems in a project's quality, time, or productivity. This paper proposes a model of process performance at the project level during product and process engineering. The model suggests that process performance mediates the influence of concurrent engineering (process choice) on overall project development performance. This process performance model is tested in the automobile industry using a sample of 406 product development projects in Germany and the USA. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how two Islamic banks have involved employees in developing service product innovations.

The case studies describe the roles of employees during specific stages of development process of service product innovations. The data were collected through face-to-face oral interviews with senior product development managers and marketing managers.

The results suggest that employees' involvement is encouraged in the selected banks through the presence of a product champion, involvement of front-line employees, support from the management, multifunctional team structure and employee external contacts. A Sharia board was at the heart of the development process of service product innovations in Islamic banks. It was also revealed that employees are more involved in developing service product innovation for retail customers in comparison to the corporate customers.

Given the focus of current literature on conventional banks, the present study attempts to widen the service innovation discussion to include Islamic banking services. The two cases have practical implications for managers and add to the academic knowledge via the extension of a concurrent staged model.