Process Innovation Capabilities Research Articles

Accelerating innovation through knowledge co-evolution: a case study in the Taiwan semiconductor industry

This paper attempts to propose a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between knowledge co-evolutionary mechanisms and innovation development. Combining strategic management, innovation management and organisational ecology theories, we try to review and explain the development of product innovation or process innovation through organisational knowledge interactions between two or more firms. We focus on the knowledge co-evolutionary cycle and suggest two sub-mechanisms that should be considered: the knowledge micro-evolutionary mechanism (intra-organisation) and the knowledge macro-evolutionary mechanism (inter-organisation). We illustrate this framework by discussing the case study of a leading semiconductor firm, United Microelectronics Corp., (UMC) in Taiwan. Combining its strategic partners' fundamental research knowledge systems, the vendor's IP knowledge systems, the customer's IC design knowledge systems, and UMC's process innovation knowledge system, UMC not only enhances the process innovation capability for itself but also accelerates its customers' product innovation performance to market. Through partnership in the co-evolutionary ecosystem, UMC generates and accumulates dynamic capabilities.

Implementation of business process innovations: an agenda for research and action

Business process innovation capability is a source for sustainable competitiveness. Business process innovations create value added in the enterprise, and can trigger strategic renewal. The management of business process innovation requires empowering mechanisms for knowledge sharing and creation, and a dynamic umbrella strategy to give direction to the innovations. Lessons from product innovation should be applied strategic project portfolio management and an aggregate project plan help to manage a balanced mix of projects and to allocate resources, and systematic project management shortens the lead time of change. Business process simulation, and learning from one development project to the next, help to create a continuously improving business process innovation capability. At the end, the contents of each article in this Issue are briefly presented, divided in three main areas: conceptual analysis of the implementation problem, organisational learning and knowledge creation in innovation processes, and specific methods and tools for business process innovation.

A New Conceptual Model for the Development of Process Technology in Process Industry A point of departure for the transformation of the “process development process” into a formal work process?

A New Conceptual Model for the Development of Process Technology in Process Industry A point of departure for the transformation of the “process development process” into a formal work process?

Innovative capabilities of a firm and the use of technical alliances

Relationships between types of innovative capabilities of firms, the amount and nature of technical alliance usage, and the extent and types of problems associated with those alliances are explored with firms in the semiconductor industry. Results show that, although firms need radical and/or incremental product and process innovation capabilities to compete successfully, they are likely to have core capabilities which are either product focused or process focused. Firms can reconcile radical and incremental R&D cultures, but find it more difficult to bridge the product-versus-process divide. Firms with strong capabilities are found to engage in more technical alliances. This is particularly true of firms with radical innovation capabilities. The study also finds that firms engage in technical alliances more often to supplement rather than complement their capabilities. Firms experience more problems in acquiring product innovation capabilities through alliances meant for new technology development than they do in acquiring process innovation capabilities.

Lead time in automobile product development explaining the Japanese advantage

This paper examines the determinants of lead time performance in the world auto industry, a complex consumer durable industry which is facing intensifying global competition and volatile market demands. We focus on explaining the apparent lead time advantage of the Japanese firms compared to their American and European competitors. Drawing on an extensive base of data on development projects, the paper studies the effect of product and project characteristics and organizational capabilities on development lead time. The notion that product development is a system of problem solving cycles provides a conceptual framework for the analysis. A central theme in the paper is the distinction between planning and engineering. We model the differences in problem solving in these activities and examine the determinants of lead time in them. We examine the effects of product content, project scope, and organizational capability for quick development. The results suggest that different factors influence planning and engineering: product innovation and project scope affect planning lead time, while process innovation and organizational capability affect engineering lead time. Overall, we find that the real lead time advantage of the Japanese is on the order of 12 months. In a competitive market with changing customer demands and rapid technological advance, a lead time gap of that magnitude is competitively significant.