Efficient New Product Development Research Articles

Shared Mental Models and Boundary Management Activities in New Product Development: A Perspective on Multiteam Systems

Multiteam systems (MTSs) have been increasingly adopted as an organizational form to manage large-scale projects. However, new product development (NPD) in the MTSs structure entails challenges with respect to achieving efficiency due to interteam coordination challenges. Shared mental models (SMMs) within a single team have been found to facilitate intrateam coordination; however, further exploration is needed as to whether SMMs within MTSs can improve interteam coordination among component teams and, if so, what mechanisms underlie this. The present article examines the theoretical underpinning of the impacts of SMMs among component team leaders on MTSs’ NPD efficiency, and further considers the impact of external conditions of requirement uncertainty, the most common external situation during NPD. Using survey data from 110 information technology development MTSs and drawing on boundary management perspective, the results reveal that SMMs among component team leaders positively affect NPD efficiency by managing the MTSs boundary, i.e., through boundary entrainment and boundary buffering activities at the system level. In addition, we find that requirement uncertainty plays a vital role in determining the nature of this relationship. Taken together, our findings highlight the importance of the role of SMMs among component team leaders in facilitating NPD efficiency in MTSs settings.

The strategic role of R&D outsourcing practices and partners in the relationship between product modularization and new product development efficiency

PurposeThe study aims to explore the conditional relationships between product modularization and new product development (NPD) efficiency. It is postulated that R&D outsourcing plays an important mediating role. Furthermore, the level of competency trust is considered an essential factor in moderating the indirect effect of product modularization on NPD efficiency via R&D outsourcing practices.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on transaction cost economics theory, this study suggests a moderated mediation model that addresses how product modularization effectively promotes NPD efficiency via outsourcing practices. The hierarchical regression and PROCESS macro model were conducted to test the hypotheses based on survey data from 273 manufacturing firms in China.FindingsProduct modularization enhances NPD efficiency directly and indirectly through the external collaboration of R&D outsourcing. Furthermore, the role of product modularization in R&D outsourcing practices is more effective when the competency trust in R&D outsourcing partners is high.Originality/valueBy showing the critical role of external collaboration, this study provides valuable insights into how manufacturing firms utilize product modularization to achieve desired NPD performance more effectively.

New product development and supplier involvement: the role of R&D collaboration with supporting organisations

Existing research highlights the importance of sourcing external knowledge in manufacturers’ innovative processes. Specifically, supplier involvement in new product development (NPD) has been widely analysed but without conclusive results. To shed light on this matter, this paper provides a deeper insight by analysing the indirect effects in the relationship between supplier involvement and two NPD dimensions (efficiency and effectiveness). In particular, it examines R&D collaboration with supporting organisations as a mechanism by which knowledge provided by suppliers may lead to better innovation performance. This study focuses on 155 high-tech and medium–high-tech Spanish firms to test indirect effects through the PROCESS macro. The results show that while there is a positive and significant indirect effect of supplier involvement on NPD efficiency through R&D collaboration with supporting organisations, that indirect effect is not significant in increasing NPD effectiveness. This research contributes to the literature on inter-organisational networks and NPD by analysing the effects of supplier involvement on NPD through the role played by supporting organisations, with different empirical evidence for each NPD dimension and practical implications.

The Relationship between Structure and Performance of Different Polyimides Based on Molecular Simulations.

A polyimide (PI) molecular model was successfully constructed to compare the performance of PIs with different structures. In detail, the structure of the cross-linked PI resin, the prepolymer melt viscosity, and the glass-transition temperature (Tg) were investigated using molecular simulations. The results indicate that benzene ring and polyene-type cross-linked structures dominate the properties of the PIs. Moreover, the prepolymer melt viscosity simulations show that the 6FDA-APB and the ODPA-APB systems have a low viscosity. The results for the Tg and the distribution dihedral angle reveal that the key factor affecting bond flexibility may be the formation of a new dihedral angle after cross-linking, which affects the Tg. The above results provide an important reference for the design of PIs and have important value from the perspective of improving the efficiency of new product development.

The interval grey QFD method for new product development: Integrate with LDA topic model to analyze online reviews

As the development of the consuming environment, the way consumers give feedback on product experience changes from passive feedback to active reviews, and the development of artificial intelligence technology brings new possibilities for companies to obtain information on Customer Requirements (CRs) and Market Competition Information (CIs) needed for new product development. In the previous New Product Development (NPD) process, CRs and CIs often need to be corrected through market surveys and questionnaires. To acquire the corrected data from experienced experts without user and designer cognitive bias is very laborious and more subjective. Under the situation of key information shortage for business developers and NPD efficiency & accuracy cannot be guaranteed, online reviews provided a good source for data analysis to enhance the market competition. This study integrates Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), Apriori algorithm, interval grey number, and Quality Function Deployment(QFD) techniques to propose the Latent Dirichlet Allocation-Interval Grey Number Quality Function Deployment (LDA-IGQFD) method, which can use text mining and analysis methods to obtain objective information about CRs and CIs contained in users’ online reviews, transformed them into data and input into Interval Grey Number Quality Function Deployment (IGQFD) to drive product development. LDA-IGQFD can help product developers identify CRs and Engineering Characteristics (ECs) important information and provide suggestions for product development. The aim of the research process under the LDA-IGQFD method is explained with the design of a dishwasher as an example, and the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method is scientifically verified.

The dilemma of downstream market stakeholder involvement in NPD: Untangling the effects of involvement and capabilities on performance

In many industries, new product development (NPD) success depends on whether products simultaneously provide value to multiple stakeholders on the demand-side of the firm like buyers, users, payers and regulators. Building on the open innovation and stakeholder literatures, we explore the dilemma of downstream market stakeholder involvement: it can help firms to create value for the market and increase their NPD financial performance but it can also negatively affect NPD efficiency. In addition, we test whether three dimensions of stakeholder involvement capabilities (identification, interaction and integration), allow firms to benefit from stakeholder involvement without impairing efficiency. The results of a survey in the medical device industry show that stakeholder involvement breadth has a positive effect on NPD financial performance and that stakeholder involvement intensity leads to less efficient NPD processes. Finally, we find that interaction and integration capabilities contribute to NPD efficiency, while identification capability is detrimental.

A structural equation modelling to investigate and analyze the relationships among new product development, disruptive innovation, fuzzy-front end, knowledge management, and team vision

Article history: Received July 18, 2014 Accepted December 18 2014 Available online December 23 2014 The purpose of conducting this research is to establish a conceptual model to improve the performance of new product development in organizations regarding variables of disruptive innovation, team vision, knowledge management, and fuzzy-front end. In this research, the structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to study the model. Also, the explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis are used to extract dimensions of fuzzy-front end and disruptive innovation variables. Research data have been gathered from 109 experts of development and research department of Iran Khodro manufacturing company. The results of research show that disruptive innovation may have very impressive effects on new product development performance. Also, team approach has direct effect on fuzzy-front end. On the other hand, knowledge management has a key role in new product development and organizations can increase the efficiency of new product development by managing their knowledge and sharing them and guarantee the organization success. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 5 © 201

The influence of network characteristics on costs in pharmaceutical new product development

This paper develops a model relating prior experiences, network stability, exclusive partnership, geographical distance, and intermediation in inter-firm R&D networks to new product development (NPD) costs. The developed hypotheses are tested with unique multilevel R&D partnership data from 33% of all clinical trials in the pharmaceutical industry from 1988 to 2010. The results provide general support for the model’s predictions. Exclusive collaborations over time with the same partners that are geographically close to each other improve NPD efficiency, while involving intermediaries only becomes relevant for non-exclusive partnerships and dispersed networks. NPD costs also increase in more stable networks, reflecting the relevance of structural holes for control and information advantages. This study contributes to the network management literature by understanding the relation between specific partnership network trade-offs, intermediation, and NPD costs. This study also enhances the relational view by integrating network theory and contributing to a deeper understanding of inter-organizational competitive advantage through the analysis of longitudinal empirical partnership data and partnership structures hitherto not analyzed.

Exploitative learning in project teams: Do cognitive capability and strategic orientations act as moderator variables?

This research aims to advance our understanding of the relationship between exploitative learning and new product development (NPD) efficiency by investigating four novel contextual variables. Based on a survey of 193 NPD projects in information technology firms located in Taiwan, we used hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test our research hypotheses. The results reveal that the relationship between exploitation and NPD efficiency is positively moderated by managerial strategic consensus and the cognitive capabilities of team members. Our findings suggest that NPD project teams engaging in exploitation yield improved NPD efficiency when the cognitive capabilities of team members and strategic consensus between managers are present. If firms desire to leverage exploitation to succeed in the highly volatile IT industry, they must recognize and create conditions under which exploitation will bring about desirable outcomes.

Model of Genetic Algorithm on the Task Distribution of New Product Development

Allocation of the tasks of the new product development is the key to the efficiency of new product development. Product development process initiated in the inherent nature of its products, through the analysis of the product development process, This paper firstly researches the principle of task partition and disintegrates the development process to acquire moderate granularity and sub-task which is convenient to manage. According to the principle of task group, we establish the related evaluation mechanism and obtain several task groups making the model of genetic algorithm.Then, evaluate coupling mechanism about the key degree of task group and the comprehensive abilities of product development group. At last, presented is the retarder according to the model and planning which demonstrates the operability of the method.

The role of empowering organization capabilities on efficiency of new product development

Article history: Received October 28, 2013 Received in revised format 25 November 2013 Accepted 19 January 2014 Available online January 21 2014 This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effects of empowering organizational capabilities on new product-development efficiency improvement and the proposed study is applied in one of Iranian food producers in city of Tehran, Iran. The study considers seven components including technological capabilities, marketing mix capabilities, capabilities for communication with customers, quality of new products, fast entry to market capabilities, customer satisfaction and economic success. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 384 randomly selected people who regularly use different food products. Cronbach alphas for all components of the survey are within acceptable limits and it confirms the overall questionnaire in terms of various questions. The study has used t-student test as well as structural equation modeling to examine different hypotheses of the survey.

Supplier integration in new product development: Computer mediated communication, knowledge exchange and buyer performance

In new product development (NPD), the buyer–supplier relationship is changing. Suppliers are becoming an integral part of the design team. This study investigates the effectiveness of computer-mediated and face-to-face communication channels on knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier firms, and ultimately buyer NPD and market performance. Open innovation literature and media richness theory are used to develop hypotheses which are then empirically tested using data collected from 157 R&D project managers from U.S. manufacturing firms. To date, empirical studies on the link between supplier integration and buyer performance show conflicting results. Structural equation modeling found a significant positive link between knowledge exchange and NPD performance, measured both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, and a significant positive link between effective and efficient NPD and market performance. A surprising finding is that contrary to media richness theory, email can perform like face-to-face communication transmitting rich information and having a positive relationship to knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier. It was also found that with face-to-face communication, knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with effective NPD while with email communication knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with efficient NPD. Video conferencing was found to have no significant effect on knowledge exchange and the effect of web-based tools was significant and negative. The implications of these findings in theory and practice are discussed.

Applying Industrial Design and Cost Engineering to New Product Development in Early‐Stage Firms

For early‐stage firms, successful commercialization of each new product is critically important, given the shortage of financial resources, the limited product portfolio, and small staffs typical of such firms. This paper investigates two key contributing factors for new product success in entrepreneurial firms: designing products that are appealing to target users in both form and function and designing products that can be manufactured at an attractive margin so that the new enterprise can generate much needed positive cash flow. These two practices—industrial design and cost engineering—are well studied in the context of larger, established corporations but have not been explored in the context of new ventures. This study focuses on the intensity of individual and combined adoption of design and cost engineering as measured by product development efficiency and effectiveness. The study was conducted on a homogeneous sample of early‐stage firms that develop physical, assembled products where design plays a role. The data collection focused only on the first product developed by each firm respectively. The results show that when implemented together, industrial design and cost engineering enhance both the effectiveness and efficiency of new product development in early‐stage firms, to greater effect than each does individually. Intensive individual adoption of practices had a negative impact on development efficiency measures such as development cost and duration. Only cost engineering individually had a beneficial impact on development effectiveness as measured by product margins. When combined, these two practices had a beneficial impact on both development duration and cost for the company's first commercial product, thereby reducing time‐to‐market and precious cash expenditures while maximizing project breakeven timing. The most successful firms in the study achieved a balance between creative innovation and cost discipline in the NPD process with third‐party design and manufacturing resources. It was found that integrating third‐party design firms into the development process can challenge, simplify, and add additional creative resources to the core entrepreneurial team, maximizing the ability to catalyze beneficial tension between creativity and cost discipline.

Cross‐Functional Integration of R&D, Marketing, and Manufacturing in Radical and Incremental Product Innovations and Its Effects on Project Effectiveness and Efficiency

Previous research commonly emphasizes the positive effects of cross‐functional integration on performance measures. However, cross‐functional integration is a highly complex phenomenon which does not allow general conclusions in terms of performance impacts. Therefore, the present study assesses the impact of integrating the R&D, marketing, and manufacturing functions on the effectiveness and efficiency of new product development (NPD) projects. A multi‐functional design is applied that considers three functions, including manufacturing, which has been often neglected in prior research on cross‐functional integration. Further, the study distinguishes between two phases of the NPD process, namely the development and commercialization phases. In building the sample care was particularly taken to include a sufficient number of highly innovative NPD projects to cover the full range in terms of project innovativeness. This allows assessing the moderating role of project innovativeness on the effects of cross‐functional integration on NPD performance.A research model incorporating these ideas is theoretically developed and empirically validated by means of survey data. One hundred and eighteen NPD project managers participated in the survey (50 incremental and 68 radical innovation projects). Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the research model. More concretely, partial least squares (PLS) was used as the most accepted variance‐based approach.Generally, the findings emphasize that the relationships between various facets of cross‐functional integration and performance measures are highly complex. The integration between R&D and marketing positively impacts efficiency, but not effectiveness across different types of projects. Further, the impact of integration between marketing and R&D depends on the process stage and the degree of innovativeness. Findings regarding the integration between R&D and manufacturing show a strong positive impact on efficiency in the development phase. With respect to the integration between marketing and manufacturing, no significant effects on the performance dimensions can be observed for radical NPD projects. Overall, a positive impact of integration between these departments on effectiveness in the commercialization phase emerges.

Combining tolerance design and monitoring process capability in a design-manufacturing integration procedure

Traditionally, tolerance design and process capability control for new product development belong to the design and manufacturing stages respectively. In fact, they determine the finished product's cost, function, and quality, and should be considered concurrently. This paper provides a design—manufacturing integration procedure to enhance the efficiency of new product development. The procedure includes a total cost analysis, process capability indices, and an altered Ix - Iy monitoring chart. In particular, the process capability indices are considered in the total cost function in order to establish the relationship between quality variability and tolerance design. The use of this procedure should help designers to determine the optimum tolerance when considering not only the total cost but also the level of process capability that a manufacturer can supply. Similarly, it also can help manufacturers to simply and accurately indicate the status of their production in meeting the required tolerance levels. Finally, the proposed procedure is applied to an assembly study to illustrate how the proposed procedure can be employed in practice.

Best new product development and management practices in the Korean high-tech industry

This paper investigates critical factors affecting the likelihood of new product success and effective new product development (NPD) models for Korean high-tech firms. Empirical results suggest that successful projects differ from unsuccessful projects in project environment, skills and resources, project leadership, strategic fit, efficient NPD process, and effective product-positioning strategies. This study confirmed that efficient and effective new product development and management were important determinants of high-tech firms' competitive advantage. Furthermore, the findings of this study raised questions about some commonly held beliefs when compared with Western studies focusing on high-tech industries.

Electronic new product development –‐ a conceptual framework

Today’s knowledge economy era is characterized by short product life‐cycles, dynamic customer requirements and complex business processes, knowledge management (KM) is becoming the pivot of new product development. In this article, the interactions between five activities of KM and new product development process are discussed in detail. Then, a novel concept – electronic new product development (E‐NPD) is put forward. E‐NPD is defined as the convergence of customer relationship, business processes, enterprise IT applications, and knowledge management system necessary to perform continuous innovation through new business model in the new knowledge‐based economy. Based on a case study in the high‐tech industry, we demonstrate that the convergence of KM and new product development have greatly enhanced the efficiency of new product development, accordingly led to the success of new product. In the end, it is concluded that competence of NPD is from KM by describing the E‐NPD structure as an organism.

Measuring Development Performance in the Electronics Industry

Within a year or so, the computer you purchased last month will probably be obsolete. For a manufacturer faced with such short product life‐cycles, the performance of the new product development (NPD) function can determine whether the firm itself is relegated to the scrap heap. With such a close link between NPD performance and a firm's overall success, we need to do more than simply ensure that individual projects are well managed; we need to assess NPD's overall contribution to the company's business performance.Christoph Loch, Lothar Stein, and Christian Terwiesch develop a two‐step model for measuring the performance of the NPD function. In this model, development output performance is the direct driver of business success. In other words, the output and the productivity of the NPD function directly affect a company's profitability and sales growth. Development output performance is driven by development process performance—that is, the operational management of development projects.Using data from the “Excellence in Electronics” project (a joint research effort of Stanford University, the University of Augsburg, and McKinsey & Co.), the two‐step model is applied to a sample of 95 business units operating in three international electronics industries: consumer/small products, computers/communications, and industrial measurement/large systems. This analysis has two main objectives: identifying the key measures of development output performance and their contribution to business success; and identifying the important measures of development process performance and their contributions to development output performance.Development productivity, measured by development expense intensity, is the clearest predictor of business success. In other words, you can't buy a competitive advantage by pouring more money into R&D. Success comes from more efficient NPD, not simply outspending the competition. In the computer industry, design‐to‐cost has a positive effect on profitability growth, and design quality has a positive influence on sales growth.The factors underlying development process performance are much more dependent on the nature of competition in each industry. For example, because competition in the large systems industry still focuses primarily on technical competence, design‐to‐cost efforts in this industry lag behind those of the computer industry. Important measures of development process performance for all industry segments examined in the study include supplier involvement in the design, early prototyping, a team‐based development organization, the use of team rewards, and value engineering.

Measuring development performance in the electronics industry

Within a year or so, the computer you purchased last month will probably be obsolete. For a manufacturer faced with such short product life-cycles, the performance of the new product development (NPD) function can determine whether the firm itself is relegated to the scrap heap. With such a close link between NPD performance and a firm's overall success, we need to do more than simply ensure that individual projects are well managed; we need to assess NPD's overall contribution to the company's business performance. Christoph Loch, Lothar Stein, and Christian Terwiesch develop a two-step model for measuring the performance of the NPD function. In this model, development output performance is the direct driver of business success. In other words, the output and the productivity of the NPD function directly affect a company's profitability and sales growth. Development output performance is driven by development process performance—that is, the operational management of development projects. Using data from the “Excellence in Electronics” project (a joint research effort of Stanford University, the University of Augsburg, and McKinsey & Co.), the two-step model is applied to a sample of 95 business units operating in three international electronics industries: consumer/small products, computers/communications, and industrial measurement/large systems. This analysis has two main objectives: identifying the key measures of development output performance and their contribution to business success; and identifying the important measures of development process performance and their contributions to development output performance. Development productivity, measured by development expense intensity, is the clearest predictor of business success. In other words, you can't buy a competitive advantage by pouring more money into R&D. Success comes from more efficient NPD, not simply outspending the competition. In the computer industry, design-to-cost has a positive effect on profitability growth, and design quality has a positive influence on sales growth. The factors underlying development process performance are much more dependent on the nature of competition in each industry. For example, because competition in the large systems industry still focuses primarily on technical competence, design-to-cost efforts in this industry lag behind those of the computer industry. Important measures of development process performance for all industry segments examined in the study include supplier involvement in the design, early prototyping, a team-based development organization, the use of team rewards, and value engineering.