There is an emerging consensus that business models are systemic and transcend firm boundaries. Yet, existing research on Business Model Innovation (BMI) challenges focus almost exclusively on intra-firm factors such as capabilities, cognition and leadership. We explore challenges related to BMI by instead drawing on an open systems perspective on organisations. In particular, we argue that the systemic and boundary-spanning nature of business models imply that firms are forced to act under conditions of interdependence and restricted freedom, since they do not have executive control over their surrounding network. Consequently, we propose that suitable managerial solutions include the development of shared knowledge, appropriability regimes based on trust, network stability and the alignment of heterogeneous interests.
The paper presents a four-layer framework for the application ofdata-driven design in a product innovation process. The framework builds onthe Knowledge Value Stream and on the Product Value Streams of a productinnovation process and indicates how data-driven activities shall be structuredand organised in relation to the different phases of a model-based decisionprocess. Visualisation is proposed as a communication enabler at the top of theframework to overcome the comprehensibility barrier between data science andengineering design models. The framework is implemented in the case study ofa construction equipment encompassing the analysis of operational machinedata and the experimentation of suitable visualisation techniques. Ultimately, alist of challenges for the implementation of data-driven design is presented, andthe capability of the framework to support the transition toward data-drivendesign is discussed in relation to the emergence of product-service systemssolutions.
The paper discusses the key enabling mechanisms introduced byWeb 2.0 technologies that can support Product Service Systems (PSSs)development teams in increasing the quality of early design decisions.The paper collects success stories and lessons learned from two empirical casestudies in the aeronautical supply chain, and from a set of questionnairesforwarded to major automotive manufacturers, about the implementation ofEngineering 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs and forums, to overcomeknowledge-sharing barriers between cross-functional design teams. The studyreveals that bottom-up and lightweight technologies can enable theimplementation of more value-driven development processes, providing meansfor locating expertise in the extended organisation, for capturing the ‘context’of the information managed, and for assessing and validating knowledge assetsin a more collaborative fashion. Eventually, it points to the most relevant issuesthat currently prevent the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies in a productdevelopment setting.
Although much research has focused on cross-functionality in product development, few studies focus on the contextual setting of the collaborative product development project. This article presents the results from a survey. The survey aims to identify the relationships between project performance and different factors when the contextual setting varies. The studied projects involved different functions: suppliers, partners, maintenance, etc. Three contextual settings were explored, including internal product development, integrated product development and distributed product development. Six factors were found to have strong correlation with project performance. Measurability of requirements, shared visions and goals for the project team, and the decision-making process were highly correlated with project performance. Several of the factors correlated strongly with the project performance in distributed product development. The relationships are presented in a system model. This article in particular, shows the importance of decision-making among actors in a distributed context.
To support the application of automated machines andcollaborative robots in unstructured environments like in the mining,agriculture and construction sector the needs of the human co-workershould be investigated to ensure a safe and productive collaboration.The empirical study presented includes the prototyping of a solution forhuman-machine communication, which has been supported by a designthinking approach. An understanding of the human needs had beencreated through jobsite observations and semi-structured interviewswith human workforces working in close proximity to heavy mobileequipment. The results shows that trust and communication have a bigimpact on the jobsite collaboration.
This paper reports findings from the application of a new method, denoted the Interface Management Method (IMM), for managing uncertainty, complexity and dispersion in product development projects. The method was applied in three commercial projects and evaluated against desired features of product development methods reported in the literature. The findings indicate the potential of the method to support product development teams when facing challenges related to uncertainty, complexity and dispersion as it helps create focus and a dialogue on how to deal with the challenges. The paper also adds to the discourse regarding product development methods by discussing and defining four interrelated concepts: method, tool, procedure and system. Through more precise definitions, the dialogue between academics and practitioners can be refined and lead to better methods, which will ultimately result in improved product development efficiency and effectiveness.
During the last few decades, and in order to increase product development efficiency, simulations strategies have been developed to guide designers towards better solutions rather than to verify suggested and basically unevaluated solutions. Such approaches are often called Simulation Driven Design (SDD), which is of interest in this review. The objective of this paper is to show the research evolution of SDD and identify the state of the art in SDD methodology. The literature review comprises several hundred references, of which 79 are included in this paper. The results comprise the state of the art in simulation driven design including the history, various definitions, criteria and effects of using SDD approaches.
Although many factors have been found to facilitate creativity in product development, the evidence of these studies lacks explanations of the mechanisms enhancing or impeding creativity. Building upon the model of Van de Ven and Poole (1995), a framework is formulated for understanding the motors of creativity in product development. Four motors for driving creativity are proposed: creativity as an evolutionary process, life cycle process, confrontation between different groups or individuals or within the context of a purposeful individual or team. A multiple-case study of three Swedish manufacturers explores the motors further and complements the framework with drivers of and counterforces to the four motors, for example, the existence of challenging managers and the perceived inappropriateness of certain formal processes for creative work. Although creativity is the result of the four motors operating simultaneously, each of the four motors provide different conditions for radical and incremental innovation.
The paper provides a comprehensive overview on which through-life cycle aspects of Functional Products (FP) are relevant to consider during development and later operation until end of life. The aspects, which are already proposed as part of the current definition of FP, are corroborated, and the additional new aspects found are proposed to extend the current definition of FP. An additional eight new aspects have been found, spanning, e.g., asset management, business model and research collaboration. Some of these new aspects may be relevant for the concepts of servitisation, through-life engineering services, product-service systems and industrial product-service systems as well. The practical implications of the results are that FP customers can improve their reasoning and requirement engineering together with FP providers. FP providers can, on the other hand, use the results to improve their long-term planning and activities from initial development activities (i.e. business case and requirement engineering) to operation at customer sites. The theoretical implications are that the additional new aspects and the proposed extended FP definition provide a foundation for researchers as well as indicating aspects/areas to further explore.
The development process for a Functional Product (FP) is complex and there is a need to coordinate, monitor, control and share information as well as to communicate properly among the parties involved in the process. This paper proposes a conceptual development process to manage the FP development, including development of hardware, software, service support system, and how to manage the operation of an FP. Further, challenges related to the integrated development of FPs are also discussed.
The development process for a Functional Product (FP) is complex and there is a need to share information as well as to communicate it among the parties involved in the process. The paper concerns shared information that is of specific interest when developing FPs, in contrast to information that must be shared during a general product or service development process. The findings are compiled in a conceptual table comprising such specific information items pertaining to both the initial development as well as post development parts of an FPs lifecycle. This table can be used as an aid to any development process or method, as it points out information items that must necessarily be shared, but not how they to be shared.
Based on empirical studies combined with a literature review, the paper proposes a comprehensive framework defining Functional Products (FP) through their constituents. The framework adds additional specificity to the literature by identifying and discussing existing and emerging constituents of FP, shedding further light on what is needed to create a long and trustful win-win situation between providers and customers in an FP context.
Based on empirical studies combined with a literature review, the paper proposes a comprehensive framework defining Functional Products (FP) through their constituents. The framework adds additional specificity to the literature by identifying and discussing existing and emerging constituents of FP, shedding further light on what is needed to create a long and trustful win-win situation between providers and customers in an FP context
Small and medium sized firms’ businesses in rural regions typically address a home market and the delivery of niched products. This makes them exposed to business downturns, innovation is thus one way to survive and prosper. Small-scale product development is typically very hands-on, a sort of trial and error process. This experimental way is in favour for the implementation of innovation processes, but one challenge is the limited resources that firms can, or are willing to, spend on innovative work. A challenge is that procedures for organisational learning are lacking in the straightforward approach. The article describes the background and rationale for supporting small-scale manufacturing by introducing a support toolbox for early product development work. The support toolbox’s rationale is built upon learning cycles and communicative prototyping which may enhance innovation process capabilities.
The research concerns identification of parameters important for the studied organisation's success in service concept design and delivery. Knowledge was gathered through interviews and participation in daily industrial work activities. The gathered knowledge was used for developing a MATLAB-based simulation model, of which the purpose is to improve the studied company's ability to develop hardware-based services at an early concept stage, and to simulate, beforehand, the predicted performance of a given service scenario. This approach minimises the cost of each concept and allows simulation of several different concepts before the actual work is done.
This paper describes on a conceptual level how the availability of functional products (consisting of hardware (HW) and a support system) may be simulated. The main objective of this paper is to present a simulation-driven methodology for predicting and optimising the availability and cost of functional products in both development and operation. The proposed simulation and optimisation methodology includes both HW and support system models, which coupled form a simulation model of a system (functional product) delivering the function. Two different simulation-driven methodologies are suggested in the paper: one for development and another for operation of functional products
This paper describes the integration of a sensor data stream monitoring system into a proposed functional product model capable of predicting functional availability. Such monitoring systems enable predictive maintenance to be carried out pre-emptive maintenance that is scheduled in response to imminent hardware failure and are in widespread use in industry. The industrial motivation for this research is that agreed upon system availability is a critical element of any business-to-business agreement regarding functional sales. Such a model is important when making strategic choices regarding FPs and can be used to develop a high availability product design through simulation driven development, as well as to provide operational decision support that reflects the current reality to enable optimal availability to be achieved in practice. The proposed model integrates hardware, support system and monitoring system models, and is able to incorporate actual operational data. It has been partly verified based on previous research.
This paper describes the integration of a sensor data stream monitoring system into a proposed functional product model capable of predicting functional availability. Such monitoring systems enable predictive maintenance to be carried out - pre-emptive maintenance that is scheduled in response to imminent hardware failure - and are in widespread use in industry. The industrial motivation for this research is that agreed upon system availability is a critical element of any business-to-business agreement regarding functional sales. Such a model is important when making strategic choices regarding FPs and can be used to develop a high availability product design through simulation-driven development, as well as to provide operational decision support that reflects the current reality to enable optimal availability to be achieved in practice. The proposed model integrates hardware, support system and monitoring system models, and is able to incorporate actual operational data. It has been partly verified based on previous research.
This paper describes the integration of a sensor data stream monitoring system into a proposed functional product model capable of predicting functional availability. Such monitoring systems enable predictive maintenance to be carried out – pre-emptive maintenance that is scheduled in response to imminent hardware failure – and are in widespread use in industry. The industrial motivation for this research is that agreed upon system availability is a critical element of any business-to-business agreement regarding functional sales. Such a model is important when making strategic choices regarding FPs and can be used to develop a high availability product design through simulation-driven development, as well as to provide operational decision support that reflects the current reality to enable optimal availability to be achieved in practice. The proposed model integrates hardware, support system and monitoring system models, and is able to incorporate actual operational data. It has been partly verified based on previous research.
This paper discusses creation of a support tool (SIMULINK model) for collaborative work process modelling and optimisation based on Simulation Driven Design (SDD). The purpose is to improve the studied company's ability to develop hardware-based services in an early concept stage, and to predict performance of a given service scenario before development. The approach is useful as a decision-support tool in evaluating and prioritising business offers and activities in the business offer process. The modelling and simulation approach minimises the cost of each concept and allows simulation of a number of different concepts before the actual work is carried out
Functional products (FP), total offers or product service systems, that comprise of both hardware (HW) and support services (SS) sold as an integrated offering under an availability guarantee, are becoming increasing popular in industry. This paper addresses, through modelling and simulation, the challenge faced by suppliers in developing an integrated HW and SS design to produce an FP which meets contracted availability. A recently published framework specified how an integrated model hardware and service support system model could be used to obtain functional availability predictions and perform simulation driven functional product development. This paper presents the first example of an integrated functional product model. It uses fault tree, Petri net and discrete event simulation techniques to enable the prediction of functional product availability and support costs. Such predictions are used here to evaluate and compare different service support system designs.
Functional Products (FP), total offers or product service systems that comprise of both Hardware (HW) and Support Services (SS) sold as an integrated offering under an availability guarantee are becoming increasing popular in industry. This paper addresses, through modelling and simulation the challenge faced by suppliers in developing an integrated HW and SS design to produce an FP which meets contracted availability. A recently published framework specified how an integrated model hardware and service support system model could be used to obtain functional availability predictions and perform simulation driven functional product development. This paper presents the first example of an integrated functional product model. It uses fault tree, Petri net and discrete event simulation techniques to enable the prediction of functional product availability and support costs. Such predictions are used here to evaluate and compare different service support system designs.
Managers aiming to utilise the potential of involving ordinary users in ideation for innovation receive very little guidance from the existing literature with regard to how to do so in a satisfactory way. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by contributing to a better understanding of how users contribute to the ideation process of technology-based services, as well as how users may satisfactorily be managed within it. This is accomplished by identifying and investigating different ideation patterns and their effects on the created ideas' characteristics in the context of mobile telephony services. The current paper is based on a quasi-experimental study lasting 12 days and involving 56 ordinary users and 12 professionals as idea creators. Three different groups of users and one reference group of professionals were used. The paper inductively identifies four different ideation patterns leading to different types of ideas with regard to their innovativeness (incremental/radical). These are further related to the existing literature. The paper concludes with the managerial implications concerning how to manage user involvement for ideation to obtain either more incremental or more radical ideas
This paper contributes to the discussion on value models as decision support in early design. Emerging from data collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 professionals in 3 manufacturing companies, the paper highlights the limitation of current development practices to promote cross-functional knowledge sharing about the stakeholders' lifecycle expectations to be met. This limits the ability to make decisions about aspects of value that are difficult to assess and quantify. The objective of the paper is then to propose the use of value models as 'boundary objects' to increase shared awareness about the design intent, triggering negotiations towards more value-adding design decisions. This role of the value model as a boundary object is studied through design experiments, using a combination of protocol analysis and observation technique on the video-recorded material.
Lean Product Development (LPD) presents ways for companies to restructure and improve their organisations, and an underlying assumption of LPD is that knowledge and learning are critical in such a process.
Previous literature suggested that the A3 report could be used as a knowledge carrier in product development, but it has not shown how this could be accomplished. In this paper, we present an approach to use the A3 report to support knowledge management. The approach was developed in collaboration with and tested at an R&D department.
The theoretical contribution of the paper is its suggestion of a new way of viewing A3s. The application of the concept of boundary object to the A3 report enables us to use the A3 as a powerful means of transferring knowledge from tacit to explicit forms. The empirical contribution presents the A3 knowledge management structure, which supports knowledge codification, transfer and creation.
Over the last few decades, the nature of innovation has changed from being primarily related to incremental product innovation towards more business model innovation, discontinuous innovation and open innovation. These changes impose new demands on the ideation phase of the innovation process and on idea management systems. This article explores what an idea management system that handles some of these different forms of innovation ideas may look like. The studied idea management system differs from previous typologies in that it is dual, i.e., aiming to generate, evaluate and select both continuous and discontinuous innovation ideas and employing different processes and criteria within the same system.
The manufacturing industry of today is constantly challenged with new requirements that have to be fulfilled in order to stay competitive on both the short term and the longer term. These new requirements can trigger the need to develop the technology in production. With technology development come uncertainties which can be reduced by integrating new knowledge in the organisation. The overall purpose of this paper is to explain empirically how knowledge integration can be managed in order to reduce the uncertainty of manufacturing technology development while balancing resources towards the short-term production needs. The findings of the current research highlight collaboration, specialist competence and a systematic approach considering the setting, which needs to be managed when conducting manufacturing technology development during full production.
This paper presents an approach towards a set-based design-inspired concept development process for products with a solution space consisting principally of different solution alternatives and parameterised variants of these. The hypothesis is that such a concept development process can be based on traditional synthesis methods, an SBD-inspired elimination strategy, axiomatic design and interactive Evolutionary Algorithms (IEAs) for the synthesis of solution candidates and the successive reduction of the solution space. Axiomatic design and its axioms are used to evaluate and eliminate unfeasible alternatives, whereas IEAs, combined with human judgement, are employed for the evaluation and elimination of variants. Stated criteria specifying a design problem can be of different kinds with different ontologies described by different authors. This study focuses on functional, constraining and qualitative criteria. Results from performed industrial case studies show that the proposed method can reduce the lead time in design work.
Among companies there is an ongoing shift from a product-based economy to a service economy, especially among companies who delivers digital services. The service sector is growing rapidly, which puts pressure on companies to keep up with their competitors. This is an often demanding process, especially for SMEs who do not have the resources to continuously develop their business. To support these SMEs innovation processes, a concept called the Living Lab is starting to grow around Europe. These Living Labs strive to support companies innovation processes by offering a neutral arena where different stakeholders can meet and co-develop innovations. However, the effects of Living Labs operations are to some extent unexplored and under-theorized. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is two-fold: to propose a set of principles for conducting Living Lab research in an innovation context and to assess the impact of the Living Lab approach on the innovation process and its stakeholders by means of the proposed principles. This study shows that the Living Lab approach offers values in many different ways for several stakeholders.