Product Development Practices Research Articles

Fan economy in the Chinese media and entertainment industry: How feedback from super fans can propel creative industries’ revenue

The media and entertainment industry in China is witnessing the changing nature of its relationships between fans and the artists/studios they follow. Fans, once merely passive recipients of marketing campaigns, are now shifting from sharing their original work (fan art, fan vids, fan fics) as active members of fan communities, and participants within the “gift economy”, to being content experts leveraged as co-creators by studios seeking to ensure the success of productions before they are released into the marketplace. China’s media and entertainment companies are beginning to embrace the creative powers of their fans, and are seeking new ways to develop, invest in, and nurture their fan community towards the co-creation of products, especially with high level “super fans”, surpassing the mere driving of purchases through lifestyle affinity. In this paper we define and discuss elements of Chinese “fans”, their evolving relationship with artists and studios, and their impact on the Chinese media and entertainment industry. This includes a description of fan “levels”, an adaptation of the ARPU (average revenue per unit) used to measure fan value, and a review of social media platforms that provide a technological base for company/fan interaction. We share examples from China’s music, film, and television industries based on interviews with industry practitioners, and offer some insights on how companies can benefit from this collaborative product development practice. In conclusion, we draw parallels between the direction of the fan-studio collaboration process with the rapidly expanding innovation process known as “design thinking”, where companies incorporate feedback from side-by-side collaboration with customers and expert users during the product development process.

Aplicação da abordagem lean no processo de desenvolvimento de produto: um survey em empresas industriais brasileiras

Resumo De acordo com a literatura da área, os princípios enxutos não devem somente ser aplicados na manufatura, mas também se estender para outros processos, principalmente aos mais a montante na cadeia de produção, como é o caso do processo de desenvolvimento de produto (PDP), o qual possui grandes oportunidades para a aplicação desses princípios. É importante que o produto seja desenvolvido com base nos princípios enxutos, para que possíveis desperdícios provenientes do PDP sejam evitados no momento da manufatura. O desenvolvimento de produto enxuto consiste em aplicar no PDP tanto os princípios enxutos, aprendidos em Lean Manufacturing (LM), quanto as práticas enxutas específicas para o desenvolvimento de produtos. Este artigo objetiva investigar se empresas industriais brasileiras, com o LM considerado consolidado, transferem os princípios e práticas enxutos para o PDP. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de uma pesquisa survey, com uma amostra de 47 empresas industriais brasileiras. Além de análise descritiva, também foi realizada uma análise de Cluster, considerando o grau de aplicação das práticas e princípios enxutos no PDP. A análise dos resultados evidencia que a maioria das empresas transferiu os princípios enxutos aprendidos com o LM para o PDP, mas ainda não consegue aplicar, em mesmo grau, as práticas enxutas no PDP. Por outro lado, 15% das empresas da amostra, apesar de terem consolidado o LM e terem um processo de desenvolvimento considerado crítico para o negócio, não estenderam os princípios e nem as práticas enxutas para o PDP.

Agile manufacturing practices for new product development: industrial case studies

Purpose – For decades multiple management philosophies directed toward lean production and mass were assumed as to respond to process inefficiencies and rampant consumerism, optimizing operation costs. However, new customization and flexible productions philosophies have been gaining ground in some industries, such as the agile manufacturing. From a literature review that addresses the history of this philosophy, it is clear that agile manufacturing is not fully comprehended, with very scarce information about practical cases. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper the authors describe an exploratory methodology approach, with three semi-structured case study interviews. The goal is to study which of agile manufacturing practices are being applied in the studied companies and what is the perceived effect that these have on operational performance. Since most of these companies develop highly customized products, the role of agility on new product development can have a huge impact on their operational performance. Findings – Agile manufacturing is not yet a widespread philosophy of managing for the companies studied, being virtually unknown as a global concept. However, it was found that many of the practices of agile manufacturing are already implemented in these companies without association with this philosophy. It was also concluded, by the finding through respondents opinions, that agile practices contribute positively to the studied companies operating performance. Originality/value – The novelty of this research derives from observation of agile manufacturing practices in SMEs. This research is useful to SMEs implementing agile manufacturing principles.

Method for evaluation via benchmarking of the lean product development process

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to describe benchmarking to evaluate the product development process (PDP) from a lean perspective.Design/methodology/approach– The work was conducted by means of case studies at large companies in Brazil that develop products, based on a gap in the literature involving a lack of indicators to diagnose how lean are PDPs considering the principles and practices of the lean approach.Findings– The results indicate in a quantitative manner that the 12 companies of the multiple case study are implementing the lean approach in their PDPs in an isolated or systematic manner through the categories – process, management, structure, people, product, client, supplier and waste.Research limitations/implications– The large companies in the case studies are located in different positions of the supply chain and the year that the company began introducing lean manufacturing was not considered, or the maturity of each firm.Practical implications– Based on the diagnosis, it was possible to propose a set of actions so that the PDP at each company can be structured in a lean manner, improving competitiveness.Originality/value– The main contribution of the study is a simple, useful and reproducible method that has a set of measurable indicators and graphic representation identifying the lean product development practices, as well as a structured guide to the implementation of improvements that allow companies from different sectors to be compared at a national level and also in the international market.

A New Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method for Priority Design of Column of Vertical Grinding Machine

In order to get a reasonable and effective adaptable structure design solution, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was applied to evaluate various schemes synthetically which has adopted the method of data normalization of the grey correlation evaluation method in pre process. Through the integrated calculation, the result of evaluation can be obtained accurately and rapidly from the static and dynamic value of the structures. An example of column of vertical grinding machine improvement design was given to explain the process of evaluation in details. Result of evaluation indicates that this method performs well in operability and practicability and can be used in the practice of product design and development.

Innovation processes: do they help or hinder new product development outcomes in Irish SMEs?

Abstract Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make a considerable contribution to the development and diffusion of innovation as well as accounting for the bulk of economic activity and employment in Ireland. A formal process for managing the stages of innovation projects is generally cited as a key component of best practice in new product development (NPD). Successfully managing innovation is an important business objective for SMEs, and yet, relatively little is known about how innovation-active firms approach innovation and, specifically, whether firms use formal processes to manage their NPD activities. This study of innovation-active Irish SMEs finds that three quarters of firms report that they do not operate a formal innovation process, yet this is not associated with poorer performance in terms of revenues from new products and services; and there are few differences between firms with formal innovation processes and firms with informal innovation process across each stage of the Innovation Value Chain. Having a more formal innovation process is, however, associated with success at bringing novel products to market. This study contributes to our understanding of the management of innovation in SMEs and to the emerging literature on SMEs that has emphasised both the prevalence and the effectiveness of informal management processes.

The impact of organizational culture on Concurrent Engineering, Design-for-Safety, and product safety performance

This paper empirically extends the research on the relationships between organizational culture, new product development (NPD) practices, and product safety performance (PSP). Using Schein's conceptualization of culture (i.e., underlying assumptions, espoused values, and artifacts), we build and test a model among five variables: top management commitment to safety (MCS), group level product safety culture (PSC) at NPD, Concurrent Engineering (CE), Design-for-Safety (DFS), and product safety performance. We propose that the underlying assumption of safety first affects the espoused values (group level product safety culture at NPD) and artifacts of organizational culture (Concurrent Engineering and Design-for-Safety); espoused value influences artifacts; and artifacts impact product safety performance. These hypotheses are tested by structural analyses of 255 survey responses collected from 126 firms in the juvenile product sector. While management commitment to safety, product safety culture, and Design-for-Safety are significant product safety predictors, as expected, Concurrent Engineering has no significant direct effect on product safety. We discuss the implications of these findings for the field of product safety.

Implementing environmental considerations within product development practices: a survey on employees' perspectives

Ambitions toward a circular economy will necessitate more pro-activity in the current practices of many organizations in order to reduce environmental impacts. Since a product's environmental fate is dictated by organization's product development, it is essential to better understand how environmental issues are taken into account in product development practices. Building on constructs from empirical research in eco-design, this paper investigates how these issues are integrated into product development practices based on the perceptions of employees drawn from a non-probability sample. We assessed employees' perceptions of how frequently these environmental considerations are applied within individual product development phases, and how are they managed. We also explored whether employee's attitudes influenced perception of these practices, and if so, how. For instance, different attitudes seem to influence product development practices at different levels of abstraction. Furthermore, these results suggest that indeed environmental considerations have not yet become a mainstream topic within product development practices; for instance, there remains much potential for more frequent inclusion of environmental considerations within various product development phases, and for highlighting their role as criteria in decision-making.

A Strong Foundation for Global Product Development (GPD): Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE), TRIZ, and Customer Value Proposition (CVP)

The rising best practice in product development utilizes a highly distributed and networked development process facilitated by a fully digital product development system. The impacts of globalization have begun on the practice of product development across a broader range of service and manufacturing industries. Organizations are utilizing skilled labors spread around the world to develop products in a collaborative manner. Best practice in product development (PD) is now rapidly migrating from local, cross-functional collaboration to a mode of global collaboration. Global product development (GPD) therefore represents a major transformation for business. However, there are certain limitations of the Global product development (GPD). The problems of new product developers are compounded due to the complexity of the products and great amount of software that is embedded in many products. The non-physical nature of software systems, where intuition, experience and judgment of experts plays more important role than quantitative and measurable metrics of the traditional engineering world, increases the complexity for the global product developers.The objective of this paper is to present frameworks that can help companies addressvarious strategic and tactical issues when considering adoption of GPD combining TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem solving), Customer value Proposition (CVP), and Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) pioneered by Toyota. Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) as a process for developing new products has started gaining traction for global product development. However, GPD projects are finding it difficult to adapt to SBCE process where time spent in the early phases of development typically is more. We propose in this paper how TRIZ & CVP based SBCE framework will make the GPD projects efficient, more robust and faster in many different GPD scenarios.Further it is proposed that principles of SBCE as practiced by Toyota Motors are natural fit for Global Product Development. However, the SBCE principles of strategic value research and alignment, map the design space, create and explore multiple concepts in parallel, integration by intersection, and establishing feasibility before commitment, need a set of tools and techniques to create an evolving picture of the situation at a particular point of time for all stakeholders in the process of development. The TRIZ & CVP based SBCE framework specifically takes care of information complexity, structural complexity, decision complexity, organization complexity& strategic value, and customer value for product of the GPD projects. TRIZ concepts of ideality, functionality, resources and contradictions elimination are used to come up with inventive solutions to sub-system functionality. TRIZ is used to generate a set of alternatives or possible solutions to various sub-systems to be made in the design space. The number of alternatives reduces gradually as the project is executed and more clarity about the components emerges. However, the goal of SBCE is to keep the alternatives till as late as possible. TRIZ helps in creating alternatives maintaining this picture and keeping all the alternatives during the whole life cycle of the project. Further the three major types of the customer value i.e. all benefits, favorable points of differences, and resonating focus and various customer value equations are added in SBCE to quantify the absolute component of value.

Management of the polyallergic patient with allergy immunotherapy: a practice-based approach.

BackgroundThe great majority (60–80 %) of patients consulting specialist physicians for allergic respiratory disease are polysensitized and thus may be potentially clinically polyallergic. However, management approaches to allergen immunotherapy (AIT) in polysensitized and polyallergic patients are not standardized.MethodsAn international group of clinicians with in-depth expertise in AIT product development, clinical trials and clinical practice met to generate up-to-date, unambiguous, pragmatic guidance on AIT in polysensitized and polyallergic patients. The guidance was developed after reviewing (1) the current stance of regulatory bodies and learned societies, (2) the literature data on single- and multi-AIT and (3) the members’ confirmed clinical experience with polysensitized patients.ResultsAIT is safe and effective in polysensitized and polyallergic patients, and should always be based on the identification of one or more clinically relevant allergens (based on the type and severity of symptoms, the duration of induced symptoms, the impact on quality of life and how difficult an allergen is to avoid). Single-AIT is recommended in polyallergic patients in whom one of the relevant allergens is nevertheless clearly responsible for the most intense and/or bothersome symptoms. Parallel 2-allergen immunotherapy or mixed 2-allergen immunotherapy is indicated in polyallergic patients in whom two causal relevant allergens have a marked clinical and QoL impact. In parallel 2-allergen immunotherapy (whether subcutaneous or sublingual), high-quality, standardized, single-allergen formulations must be administered with an interval of 30 min. Mixing of allergen extracts may be considered, as long as (1) the mixture is technically feasible, (2) the mixture is allowed from a regulatory standpoint, (3) the allergen doses are reduced in proportion to the number of components but are still at concentrations with demonstrated efficacy.ConclusionsPhysicians can prescribe AIT (preferably with high-quality, standardized, single-allergen formulations) with confidence in polysensitized and polyallergic patients by focusing on clinical/QoL relevance and safety.

Beyond Waste Elimination: Assessing Lean Practices in Product Development

Maintaining simultaneous focus on efficiency and effectiveness is a difficult yet necessary strategy to deliver commercially viable products in today's global world of competition. As a result, manufacturing companies aim to shift from a modus of operandi dominated by removing waste at the factory floor to leveraging value creation in all direct or indirect activities within the product value stream. One of the most popular strategies in this regard is to apply the Lean concept in product development (PD). This paper researches to which degree PD practices in a Scandinavian design and manufacturing company comply with Lean in its own context. A capability maturity tool has been developed and piloted in the case company to identify gaps and improvement potentials. The results show that the structure of the tool makes it scalable to other contexts than the case company.

Continuous planning through the three horizons of growth

This study addresses the topic of continuous planning in the agile and lean software development context. The paper investigates how software companies can achieve various benefits by dividing their product development practices along the three horizons of growth. This approach allows software companies to have different product development and planning practices inside the company, thereby strengthening their positions in well-established businesses as well as creating growth in completely new businesses. Theoretically, the paper draws on the business literature of the three horizon model and on the literature of agile and lean software development. The empirical part is based on a case study with a leading Finnish software company. Altogether, 12 narrative interviews were conducted, involving people with various roles from product manager to chief strategy officer. The research presents a new approach towards continuous planning within multiple business horizons, to address common challenges in managing software product portfolios in different maturity phases.

Understanding ecodesign through a communities of practice perspective

Despite many years of tool development and legislative initiatives, companies are still challenged by ecodesign. This article applies Etienne Wenger's communities of practice approach to the existing environmental and product development practices of two Danish case companies. It is a contribution to the current ecodesign discussion and emphasises the social structures and practice perspectives when implementing ecodesign. The case studies reveal the importance of various social elements, which include the participatory role brokers play in organising, facilitating and negotiating meaning with different community members; the use of boundary objects for establishing dialogue and encouraging participation; and the balance between participation and reification in the process of continuously negotiating meaning. In conclusion, ways in which ecodesign can be strengthened using Wenger's principles for cultivating communities of practice are suggested. A diversified approach to ecodesign whereby existing communities can expand their current practices and transform into ecodesign communities is also suggested.

The late-adopter scale: A measure of late adopters of technological innovations

The diffusion of innovation is an interesting topic for researchers and practitioners. However, researchers often focus on the first half of the diffusion of innovation curve, ignoring the late adopters. This article presents two studies with high-tech products (mobiles and laptops) that measure the attributes of late adopters. The first study of mobile phones uses 50 initial items. After Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), a refined version of these items permits to develop an initial version of the late-adopter scale. The study tests the new scale on a sample of laptop users. The final scale is multi-dimensional, presents nomological and discriminant validity and has three dimensions: (1) slowness of adoption, (2) resistance to innovation, and (3) skepticism. All three late-adopter scale dimensions significantly associate with low price preference. In both samples, skepticism associates with high preference for simple products, low lead-user profile, and low product involvement. Discussion focuses on the implications of this new scale for theory and practice of new product development and diffusion of innovation in high-tech firms.

Small Business Apparel Retailing in Jamaica: An Exploratory Investigation into Product Development Processes and Practices

While the process and practices of retail product development in developed countries have been documented, avoid exists in descriptive analysis regarding retail product development in an international setting. The primary purpose of this study was to explore small business apparel retailing, and specifically the retail product development process and practices in Jamaica. Using the case study approach, five apparel retailers in Jamaica who engaged in retail product development are profiled. In- depth interviews, observations, and documents were used to collect data and results were presented after analysis. The findings revealed that the process of product exclusivity, training of workers, modern technological devices, networking, and product quality were of major concern to apparel retailers in Jamaica, which is shown to be very similar to the retail product development process carried out in the U.S.A.

A review of research and innovation in garment sizing, prototyping and fitting

Achieving well fitting garments matters to consumers and, therefore, to product development teams, garment manufacturers and fashion retailers when creating clothing that fits and functions both for individuals and for a retailer's target populations. New tools and software for body scanning and product development enhance the ways that sizing and fitting can be addressed; they provide improved methods for classifying and analysing the human body and new ways of garment prototyping through virtual product development.Recent technological developments place a growing demand on product development teams to reconsider their approach to prototyping, sizing and fitting. Significant, related changes are also being made in the fashion retail environment, including innovations in virtual fit to enable consumers to engage with fit online. For best effect in the short term, such advances need to relate well to existing manufacturing practices and to the methods that have, over many years, become embedded by practitioners into the processes involved in clothing product development and those used for establishing garment fit.The high rate of technological advance, however, places an urgent need on practitioners to change; established principles of pattern theory need to be recognised explicitly and followed consistently, otherwise, new techniques for developing and assessing products will not be able to be fully exploited. Practitioners will be pressed to adopt more data-rational approaches to product development, including adopting engineering principles into the practice of clothing product development. For example, comparisons made between the traditional two-dimensional garment pattern and the three-dimensional environment accessible through 3-D body scanning technology, provide both the stimulus and the data required to support a re-examination of how the measurements required for clothing product development should be defined. This should be coupled with a more explicit recognition of ease as a factor requiring quantification within clothing engineering. New methods of categorising the body in terms of its form also allow recognition of the restrictions of proportional theories in pattern construction; they afford promising opportunities for advancing the practices of sizing and fitting in clothing product development.

Strategic, organizational and operational challenges of product innovation in emerging economies

Although there are several studies highlighting the best new product development (NPD) practices of Western firms, we know very little about NPD practices in emerging economies, which are widely expected to play an important role in the world's economic growth in the years to come. In particular, we focus here on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is an important gateway to the Middle East and Africa. Understanding NPD practices in the UAE will be helpful not only for firms in the UAE seeking to improve their NPD but also for Western firms interested in engaging in NPD in that region, in order for them to know what to expect from their potential partners from the UAE and how to align their NPD practices with those of their partners in that region. This paper presents a survey study highlighting major strategic, organizational and operational aspects of the NPD practices of firms in the UAE and identifying related challenges.

Investigating Lean Development Practices in SE Companies: A Comparative Study Between Sectors

Many companies have attempted to introduce Lean practices in product development to gain competitive advantage in today's global market place. However, the application of Lean outside the factory floor is not straightforward—especially when it is introduced in functional areas that differ significantly from manufacturing, such as in the multifaceted context of System Engineering (SE). In this article, we investigate the extent to which SE companies are engaging in Lean product development, and the degree to which various lean practices and capabilities are implemented. The overall goal is to determine how SE companies compare to companies in other industrial sectors, and thereby gaining new insights into strategies for more contextual implementation of lean in engineering functions. An extensive literature review is conducted to synthesize prior research with regard to the principal components of Lean when applied in product development. The extract from the literature study is combined with the author's industrial experience and hypothetical reasoning to build a framework consisting of six principal Lean components, including Customer Value, Knowledge Transfer, Continuous Improvement, Standardization, Stabilization and Culture. Each of these is divided into a set of practice and capability characteristics collectively constituting the component as a whole, forming the basis for a survey for lean maturity. A survey is conducted in the Norwegian manufacturing industry to determine Lean practices from the construct of the generic model as basis. The survey was answered by 297 respondents from 56 companies, providing the opinion of individuals as to where they place their current practices and capabilities on alean maturity scale for each question, including a supplemental set of performance and productivity related assessment items. Results indicate that there seem to be explanations rooted in marked and project characteristics, for the significant differences between perceived Lean performance in Systems Engineering versus the other sectors, especially Automotive, when talconsidering Customer Value and Project Performance. In between these categories this study reveals a potential for the Systems Engineering industry to improve upon the way organizational learning is managed to develop and sustain a culture for continuous improvement. Findings and discussions underline that Lean has a stronger foothold, based on history and market conditions, in the Automotive industry, as to how organizations effectively execute development projects.

Organizational Culture and New Product Development: Implications for Product Safety Performance

This paper empirically extends the research on the relationships between organizational culture, new product development practices and product safety performance. Using Schein’s conceptualization o...

Business Social Responsibility to Improve New Product Development

Corporate social responsibility may be one of the major causes of new product development (NPD) project failure. However, many organizations ignore corporate social responsibility leading to a poor NPD performance. The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the associations among corporate social responsibility, brand image, and NPD performance. The second objective was to evaluate the mediating effect of brand image on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and NPD performance. The third objective was to determine whether the impact of brand image on NPD performance was moderated by product characteristics. The results suggest that corporate social responsibility may contribute to brand image. In addition, brand image has a significant effect on NPD performance. The testing also supports a role for brand image as a full mediator in the relationship between corporate social responsibility practices and NPD performance. The findings also indicate that project purpose has a moderating effect on the relationship between corporate social responsibility practices and NPD performance. product development, empirical evidence that supports the importance of corporate social responsibility practice in new product development is lacking. This study attempts to fill the gap in the literature by identifying the roles of brand image in the relationship between corporate social responsibility practice and new product development success. This research employed questionnaire survey for data collection. In order to explore the benefits of corporate social responsibility effort, an industry-wide survey was used to investigate NPD projects in the Taiwanese high-tech industry.