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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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how necessary changes in a manufacturing system can be determined based on a new product specification. It proposes a formal modelling approach, enhancing the utilization of changeability of a manufacturing system given a set of changes in a product.

To develop the proposed modelling approach, a design science research method is used to iteratively frame an issue, develop a solution and evaluate it in a relevant environment. Evaluation is carried out through a case study.

A stepwise method is introduced, facilitating the creation of a model describing the relations between product characteristics within a product family and the changeability of a manufacturing system. Limitations of each manufacturing system module are evaluated to determine permittable changes in the product domain. This establishes clear relations between product attributes and manufacturing capabilities. Through this, users receive feedback on which parts of the manufacturing system must change, depending on changes in product attributes.

Testing has been carried out in an academic learning factory setting. Products and processes are thus less complicated than an industrial setting. The system used for validation is highly modular by design.

The proposed approach could be used during product development, when determining characteristics and variety of new products, evaluating the consequences of changing the solution space. This implies a shorter time-to-market and lower product costs.

Faster product development and shorter time-to-market would give manufacturers increased agility to track market needs, and ultimately lead to greater fulfilment of customer requirements.

The current body of literature focus on modelling either products or manufacturing systems. Little literature addresses both, but does not touch on identifying changes within parts of the manufacturing system, nor supports the high changeability proposed in this research.

Electronic product catalogues and brochures are gaining popularity, but there is little agreement on content, format, and searching methods. This limits their usability and integration with existing construction software tools. This paper examines a product‐modelling approach to delivering building product information and describes a proposed multi‐tier client‐server environment. ISO/STEP and IAI/IFC building product models are considered to facilitate representation, exchange, and sharing of product information. The proposed architecture incorporates scalability with middleware components that would provide single or few points of entry to integrated product information. This paper is part of a research project that builds on the results of related projects including Construct IT Strategy, PROCAT‐GEN, Active Catalog, COMBINE, and ARROW, towards implementing the required software components.

Use by some firms of a revolutionary new form of market research, here termed “real‐time market research”, has been observed in certain dynamic product markets where technologies and consumer preferences change rapidly. In real‐time product research, firms produce small lots of new product models and research consumer reaction by offering product model variations to consumers. This product research has been made economically feasible by the development of methods for shortening the time required for product development, by the adoption of flexible manufacturing systems, and by the rise of important new regimes for designing products. Documents the apparent use of real‐time market research by some firms and discusses the new product design regimes which make real‐time research feasible and economic.

Creation of new products from existing solutions (product re‐design) shortens new product introduction phases and reduces costs. The product re‐engineering process is a new approach to the realisation of substitute components without the benefit of original design process documentation or any other documentation relating to the component. Re‐engineering comprises stages which are potentially applicable to many industries. This research applies an enterprise modelling architecture to modelling the re‐engineering process, producing descriptions of the process from several different descriptive views, namely function, information, resource and organisation. This results in a more complete description of the process, in which the model itself may be used as a reference for the implementation of a re‐design process in a particular company. This research also shows how the information modelling constructs of CIMOSA can be used to meet the particular unique requirements of the process of re‐design.

This paper aims to examine the changing backdrop of the consumer market in relation to three-dimensional (3D) printing, especially in the context of Web infrastructure that connects consumers and producers with unprecedented diversity and scale and Web 2.0 user-created content in the material domain.

The paper presents a conceptual architecture and software platform that facilitates do-it-yourself reconfiguration of existing products incorporating 3D printing, mobile 3D sensor, augmented reality (AR) and Web technologies.

This work shows that prosumer reconfiguration of consumer products is the major paradigm in the era of democratized production. The results suggest that this approach may be used in the consumer market to meet consumer preferences for adopting innovations without redundant consumption.

Verification of the proposed conceptual approach is limited to the use of household consumer products. A critical mass of participants and product information are both necessary to achieve a sustainable ecosystem from the proposed platform. Intellectual property issues rely on the fair use of end-user production in this paper.

The proposed approach allows users to swap out consumer product parts or upgrade individual modules as innovations emerge, extending the lifecycles of consumer products and potentially reducing consumer waste.

There is a lack of work on facilitating the proliferation of practical 3D printing through prosumption in relation to existing consumer products. This paper’s scientific contribution involves how 3D printing affords social manufacturing and consumer-oriented presumption in conjunction with mobile 3D sensor, AR, and Web technologies.

This paper introduces a schema for the product assembly feature data in an object-oriented and module-based format using Unified Modeling Language (UML). To link production with product design, it is essential to determine at an early stage which entities of product design and development are involved and used at the automated assembly planning and operations. To this end, it is absolutely reasonable to assign meaningful attributes to the parts’ design entities (assembly features) in a systematic and structured way. As such, this approach empowers processes such as motion planning and sequence planning in assembly design.

The assembly feature data requirements are studied and definitions are analyzed and redefined. Using object-oriented techniques, the assembly feature data structure and relationships are modeled based on the identified requirements as five UML packages (Part, three-dimensional (3D) models, Mating, Joint and Handling). All geometric and non-geometric design data entities endorsed with assembly design perspective are extracted or assigned from 3D models and realized through the featured entity interface class. The featured entities are then associated (used) with the mating, handling and joints features. The AssemblyFeature interface is realized through mating, handling and joint packages related to the assembly and part classes. Each package contains all relevant classes which further classify the important attributes of the main class.

This paper sets out to provide an explanatory approach using object-oriented techniques to model the schema of assembly features association and artifacts at the product design level, all of which are essential in several subsequent and parallel steps of the assembly planning process, as well as assembly feature entity assignments in design improvement cycle.

The practical implication based on the identified advantages can be classified in three main features: module-based design, comprehensive classification, integration. These features help the automation and solution development processes based on the proposed models much easier and systematic.

The proposed schema’s comprehensiveness and reliability are verified through comparisons with other works and the advantages are discussed in detail.

Effective product life cycle management will save costs and resources and improve customer service. Seeks to present a simulation model of the complete life cycle of a batch of products undergoing breakdown and repair and to show the ability of the model to predict future waste arisings and cost savings.

ARENA system simulation software is used for a novel application – a full life cycle of manufacture, use, repair and ultimate disposal. Two batches of products are compared: products with and without features which improve reliability. The number of replications for the Monte Carlo process can be calculated from the statistics of the model data.

The model demonstrates the predicted flows of products through their life cycle. The software has in‐built probability distributions that are not fully suitable for the problem modelled, requiring some artificial treatment, especially when using the delay function. The number of replications should be increased, requiring additional computer time.

The model is potentially valuable for producers wishing to predict the effect on future costs or the risk of modifying designs. The method can also be used to assist waste management using the output graphs of disposed components or products; hence the economics of component remanufacture or reuse can be modelled.

The paper presents the first known application of manufacturing system simulation software for modelling product life cycles.

This paper presents an analytical framework for modeling and measuring strategic alignment. The resource-product-market (RPM) model is introduced as a means of representing the alignment of the firm's internal resources with its product lines and external markets. A strategic alignment index is defined to measure the degree of alignment represented by a model.

The RPM model is derived as an extension of prior research on diversification indexes. The strategic alignment index is mathematically defined and the properties of the model are characterized using graph theory. The approach is illustrated for two example firms.

The RPM model is flexible and can be used with different types and measures of resources, products and markets. The model represents strategy in a structural manner addressing a vertical type of alignment. The index ranges continuously from 0 to 1.0, providing a useful scale for measurement and comparison.

Practitioners may use RPM modeling to assess the current alignment of their respective firms and to identify strategic alternatives which increase alignment through a taxonomy of 13 strategic moves. The results of applying the model to ten firms are summarized.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a new method for modeling firm strategy which integrates resource and industry views, thereby enabling a measurement of their alignment. The paper is also novel in the application of graph theory to management.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between new product diffusion and consumer internet search patterns using big data and to investigate whether such data can be used in forecasting new product diffusion.

This research proposes a new product diffusion model based on the Bass diffusion model by incorporating consumer internet search behavior. Actual data from search engine queries and new vehicle sales for each vehicle class and region are used to estimate the proposed model. Statistical analyses are used to interpret the estimated results, and the prediction performance of the proposed method is compared with other methods to validate the usefulness of data for internet search engine queries in forecasting new product diffusion.

The estimated coefficients of the proposed model provide a clear interpretation of the relationship between new product diffusion and internet search volume. In 83.62 percent of 218 cases, analyzing the internet search pattern data are significant to explain new product diffusion and that internet search volume helps to predict new product diffusion. Therefore, marketing that seeks to increase internet search volume could positively affect vehicle sales. In addition, the demand forecasting performance of the proposed diffusion model is superior to those of other models for both long-term and short-term predictions.

As search queries have only been available since 2004, comparisons with data from earlier years are not possible. The proposed model can be extended using other big data from additional sources.

This research directly demonstrates the relationship between new product diffusion and consumer internet search pattern and investigates whether internet search queries can be used to forecast new product diffusion by product type and region. Based on the estimated results, increasing internet search volume could positively affect vehicle sales across product types and regions. Because the proposed model had the best prediction power compared with the other considered models for all cases with large margins, it can be successfully utilized in forecasting demand for new products.