Open innovation for manufacturing technologies : the operational technology management level perspective

Abstract

This paper-based dissertation aims to contribute to the open innovation (OI) and technology management (TM) research fields by investigating their mechanisms, and potentials at the operational level. The dissertation connects the well-known concept of technology management with OI formats and applies these on specific manufacturing technologies within a clearly defined setting. Technological breakthroughs force firms to continuously adapt and reinvent themselves. The pace of technological innovation and their impact on firms is constantly increasing due to more connected infrastructure and accessible resources (i.e. data, knowledge). Especially in the manufacturing sector it is one key element to leverage new technologies to stay competitive. These technological shifts call for new management practices. TM supports firms with various tools to manage these shifts at different levels in the firm. It is a multifunctional and multidisciplinary field as it deals with all aspects of integrating technological issues into business decision-making and is directly relevant to a number of core business processes. Thus, it makes sense to utilize this theory and their practices as a foundation of this dissertation. However, considering the increasing complexity and number of technologies it is not sufficient anymore for firms to only rely on previous internal R&D and managerial practices. OI can expanse these practices by involving distributed innovation processes and accessing further external knowledge sources. This expansion can lead to an increasing innovation performance and thereby accelerate the time-to-market of technologies. Research in this dissertation was based on the expectations that OI formats will support the R&D activities of manufacturing technologies on the operational level by providing access to resources, knowledge, and leading-edge technology. The dissertation represents uniqueness regarding the rich practical data sets (observations, internal documents, project reviews) drawn from a very large German high-tech firm. The researcher was embedded in an R&D unit within the operational TM department for manufacturing technologies. The analyses include 1.) an exploratory in-depth analysis of a crowdsourcing initiative to elaborate the impact on specific manufacturing technologies, 2.) a deductive approach for developing a technology evaluation score model to create a common understanding of the value of selected manufacturing technologies at the operational level, and 3.) an abductive reasoning approach in form of a longitudinal case study to derive important indicator for the in-process activities of science-based partnership university-industry collaboration format. Thereby, the dissertation contributed to research and practice 1.) linkages of TM and OI practices to assimilate technologies at the operational level, 2.) insights about the impact of CS on manufacturing technologies and a related guideline to execute CS initiatives in this specific environment 3.) introduction of manufacturing readiness levels and further criteria into the TM and OI research field to support decision-makers in the firm in gaining a common understanding of the maturity of manufacturing technologies and, 4.) context-specific important indicators for science based university-industry collaboration projects and a holistic framework to connect TM with the university-industry collaboration approach The findings of this dissertation illustrate that OI formats can support the acceleration of time-to-market of manufacturing technologies and further improve the technical requirements of the product by leveraging external capabilities. The conclusions and implications made are intended to foster further research and improve managerial practices to evolve TM into an open collaborative context with interconnectivities between all internal and external involved technologies, individuals and organizational levels.