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1 – 10 of over 58000The paper analyses the implications of a platform strategy in new product development with reference to the automobile industry. The implications and benefits of a platform…
Abstract
The paper analyses the implications of a platform strategy in new product development with reference to the automobile industry. The implications and benefits of a platform strategy are discussed from both the technical and organisational points of view. The impact of a platform strategy on international product development is then analysed. The paper draws on examples from the experience of major Japanese automobile companies. In general, the analysis highlights how platform strategies are evolving and how they must be recognised more and more in relation to the internationalisation processes of R&D activities and operations. Moreover, different approaches are pointed out concerning more advanced and/or conservative approaches to platform development. A more advanced approach leads to more benefits in terms of the performance of the product development process and the reorganisation of the development process on a global level.
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Marc Wouters, Susana Morales, Sven Grollmuss and Michael Scheer
The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).
Methodology/approach
This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.
Findings
The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.
Research limitations/implications
This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.
Originality/value
This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.
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Purpose – This chapter discusses the difference between a product strategy and a platform strategy, relying on examples from the history of Apple and Microsoft in personal…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter discusses the difference between a product strategy and a platform strategy, relying on examples from the history of Apple and Microsoft in personal computers and other devices as well as Sony and Japan Victor Corporation in videocassette recorders.
Design/methodology/approach – The chapter begins with a review of how the term “platform” has been used in the management literature and defines an industry-wide platform (as compared to an in-house company product platform) as a foundation technology (or service) that brings multiple parties in a market together for a common purpose. An industry-wide platform can generate powerful network effects between the platform and complementary products and services that make the platform increasingly valuable. Apple, with the Macintosh computer, and Sony with the Betamax VCR as well as other products, such as the Walkman media player, are examples of firms that developed excellent products but followed a product-first strategy and ended up losing in these markets or becoming niche players. They paid relatively little attention to opening up their technology to outside firms and cultivating an ecosystem of partners. Apple changed in the early 2000s with the iPod and iTunes, and then the iPhone and iPad, and has risen from near bankruptcy to become an enormously valuable and profitable platform leader.
Findings – Historical examples suggest that, in a platform market, the winner is not the firm with the best product, but rather the firm with the best platform – that is, the foundation technology or service that is most open to outsiders and which stimulates development of the most compelling complements.
Originality/value – This result extends the literature's understanding of platform strategy.
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When competing in a turbulent environment, strategic flexibility can be a competitive advantage. One source of flexibility is the new product development (NPD) process, or more…
Abstract
Purpose
When competing in a turbulent environment, strategic flexibility can be a competitive advantage. One source of flexibility is the new product development (NPD) process, or more specifically product design. The purpose of this paper is to investigate platform-based product design and its relationship to environmental turbulence, strategic flexibility, and market performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model is developed and relationships are empirically tested using structural equation modeling. Data were collected from engineering design managers in the US manufacturing industry.
Findings
The paper found that the higher the level of environmental turbulence the more firms turned to platform product design. Also, the higher the level of platform design the higher the level of market performance, both in the short term and the long term. Finally, the paper showed that strategic flexibility positively and partially mediates the positive relationship between platform design and performance.
Originality/value
Platform-based product design is a research area noticeably devoid of empirical work. Furthermore, research has called for a better understanding of the different contexts in which platforms are applied stating that platform planning is too often decoupled from NDP strategy resulting in unsatisfactory results.
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Chun Hsien Wang, Ching-Hsing Chang and Zui Chih Rick Lee
This study attempts to reveal product platform strategy via business-to-business (B2B) platform ecosystems. The authors advance the views of platform ecosystems in the innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study attempts to reveal product platform strategy via business-to-business (B2B) platform ecosystems. The authors advance the views of platform ecosystems in the innovation literature by introducing a contingency perspective that underscores the role of market, organizational and technological innovativeness in product platform strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study explores three contingent factors, specifically market innovativeness, technological innovativeness and organizational innovativeness that affect the product platform strategy of high-tech firms. The theoretical model is empirically validated using survey data from 191 high-tech firms.
Findings
Using a data set of high-tech manufacturing firms, the results show that product platform strategy is positively related to firm performance. Additionally, the results provide evidence supporting the positive moderating effect of the three-way interaction among market, organizational and technological innovativeness on the contribution of product platform strategy to firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
A platform product strategy is a determining factor in firm performance that requires firms to have a “fit” with their innovation activities. This study contributes to theoretical development at the intersection of product platform strategy and innovativeness.
Practical implications
When firms seek to align their technological innovativeness with their organizational innovativeness, the benefits of such innovativeness may be more pronounced in a platform product context. Moreover, the results may help guide platform managers and decision makers in identifying and securing appropriate innovation activities to enhance product platform strategies.
Originality/value
This study provides a product platform strategy in B2B platform ecosystems and shows how different innovation activities interact to improve the product platform strategy.
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Jesús F. Lampón, Vincent Frigant and Pablo Cabanelas
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the key factors behind the adoption of new automobile modular platforms from the perspectives of product design, manufacturing network and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the key factors behind the adoption of new automobile modular platforms from the perspectives of product design, manufacturing network and production systems.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth and qualitative cross-case analysis of European manufacturing networks was performed based on the modular platforms of seven automobile manufacturers.
Findings
The adoption of modular platforms has changed automobile product architecture helping automobile manufacturers to improve their manufacturing network outputs. The results show that operational flexibility and scope and scale economies at manufacturing network level depend on the platform design – degree of modularity – and the manufacturer’s product and manufacturing network conditions. This new product architecture allows for the new production systems to be efficient in terms of flexibility and versatility without overinvestment.
Originality/value
The main contribution to the research literature is the combination of traditional product architecture with the manufacturing network approach to analyse the influence of product design on production systems, especially regarding the adoption of new automobile modular platforms.
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A.A. (Alex) Alblas and J.C. (Hans) Wortmann
Success in manufacturing industries often depends on the ability of a firm to apply product platforms. In speeding up product development, platforms often enable companies to…
Abstract
Purpose
Success in manufacturing industries often depends on the ability of a firm to apply product platforms. In speeding up product development, platforms often enable companies to benefit from scale effects by reusing existing components in the development of new products. In the delivery of complex products and system (CoPS), however, platforms are frequently modified since components have to be changed within their life cycle to meet additional customer-specific engineering demands and evolving innovations in technology. In this article, it will be illustrated that intangible design elements can be used as platforms in firms that deliver CoPS. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Through extensive fieldwork at a leading supplier of science-based lithography machinery, a modified platform concept was developed and tested that is labelled as the function-technology (FT) platform. The longitudinal data, collected on site, demonstrate positive effects of applying FT platforms.
Findings
The results show that an important explanation for firm's success in delivering lithography machinery with attractive performance is their ability to deliver variants that are specific in terms of physical modules, but common in terms of functions and technologies. Based on the results, it can be argued that establishing an FT platform will allow the efficient creation of variants within a family of CoPS.
Originality/value
The findings add considerable insight to the existing literature on operations management by explaining how intangible design elements, instigated during development, can be reused in the delivery of CoPS. Moreover, it enables development managers to more easily structure and reuse complex development tasks.
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Martin Sköld and Christer Karlsson
It is argued in this article that too little is known about product platforms and how to deal with them from a manager's point of view. Specifically, little information exists…
Abstract
Purpose
It is argued in this article that too little is known about product platforms and how to deal with them from a manager's point of view. Specifically, little information exists regarding when old established platforms are replaced by new generations in R&D and production environments. To shed light on this unexplored and growing managerial concern, the purpose of this explorative study is to identify operational challenges to management when product platforms are replaced.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a longitudinal field‐study approach. Two companies, Gamma and Omega, fulfilled important sampling criteria and were selected as strategic samples for the study. The two companies were studied for 42 and eight months, respectively, and were chosen for their long and rigorous experiences of platform development. Together with managers from Gamma and Omega, one major platform replacement was chosen in each company.
Findings
The study shows that platform replacements primarily challenge managers' existing knowledge about platform architectures. A distinction can be made between “width” and “height” in platform replacements, and it is crucial that managers observe this in order to challenge their existing knowledge about platform architectures. Issues on technologies, architectures, components and processes as well as on segments, applications and functions are identified.
Practical implications
Practical implications are summarized and discussed in relation to a framework distinguishing between platform replacement “height” and “width”. Seven groups of managerial measures for dealing with the issues are recommended.
Originality/value
The study aims to contribute to the existing literature by taking a managers' perspective of product platform development. Its specific originality and value is achieved by focusing on product platform replacements believed to represent a growing management challenge.
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Zhanghuang Xie, Xiaomei Li, Dian Huang, Andrea Appolloni and Kan Fang
We consider a joint optimization problem of product platform design and scheduling on unrelated additive/subtractive hybrid machines, and seek to find efficient solution…
Abstract
Purpose
We consider a joint optimization problem of product platform design and scheduling on unrelated additive/subtractive hybrid machines, and seek to find efficient solution approaches to solve such problem.
Design/methodology/approach
We propose a mathematical formulation for the problem of simultaneous product platform design and scheduling on unrelated additive/subtractive hybrid machines, and develop a simulated annealing-based hyper-heuristic algorithm with adjustable operator sequence length to solve the problem.
Findings
The simulated annealing-based hyper-heuristic algorithm with adjustable operator sequence length (SAHH-osla) that we proposed can be quite efficient in solving the problem of simultaneous product platform design and scheduling on unrelated additive/subtractive hybrid machines.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, we are one of the first to consider both cost-related and time-related criteria for the problem of simultaneous product platform design and scheduling on unrelated additive/subtractive hybrid machines.
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Wentao Xu, Wei Yan, Bo Song and Junliang He
The aim of this study is to examine the influence of consumer preferences for overseas green products and the implementation of blockchain technology on the performance of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to examine the influence of consumer preferences for overseas green products and the implementation of blockchain technology on the performance of a supply chain, which comprises an overseas manufacturer and a domestic e-commerce platform. This research endeavors to identify the optimal pricing decisions and strategies for both the manufacturer and the platform in the context of the expanding e-commerce and globalization of the economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose and analyze four distinct models based on the selection of selling contracts by the manufacturer and the adoption strategy of blockchain by the platform, using game theory to obtain the optimal solutions for these models.
Findings
The authors show that consumer migration promotes the manufacturer's green inputs, while the expansion of green consumer proportion is not conducive to it. They also show that blockchain technology has the potential to effectively limit manufacturer cannibalization. Interestingly, the study reveals a cascading effect of advantage where the manufacturer's profit variation trend changes only with the integration of pricing power advantage and blockchain technology inputs. This effect suggests that the equilibrium strategy is achievable under the agency contract with blockchain adoption, while Pareto improvement can be obtained with blockchain technology under both selling contracts.
Research limitations/implications
This research could be extended in several possible directions. First, future work could explore outsourcing strategies for overseas manufacturers. Second, more types of consumer heterogeneity and different risk preferences could be considered. Third, this study can be extended by further exploring the design of mechanisms under asymmetric demand information to make the model more realistic.
Originality/value
The authors examine the impact of market segmentation and consumer preferences on green supply chain decisions, and analyze supply chain members' strategic choices for selling contracts and blockchain adoptions. The research also sheds light on the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of green supply chain development and blockchain applications.
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