Product Development Organizations Research Articles

Barriers and enablers for the adoption of sustainable design practices using new design methods – Accelerating the sustainability transformation in the manufacturing industry

Product development and manufacturing organizations struggle in their sustainability transformation and do not sufficiently contribute to sustainable production and consumption. Design researchers, at the same time, develop and propose a plethora of new and improved design methods that can support the manufacturing industry in such transformation. It is, despite this, well-documented in literature that the industrial adoption of such proposed design methods is challenging. Previous research in the design domain has mainly studied this issue from a process and methodological perspective, whereas previous research in the management domain instead has focused on organizational, and human-behavioral aspects. This poses a research gap for more interdisciplinary research that studies the adoption of design methods from all three perspectives (i.e., process and methodology, organization, and human behavior). Six parallel case studies were carried out with three different product development and manufacturing organizations to collect qualitative empirical data. Glaserian grounded theory was used to analyze the collected data. This resulted in a descriptive framework that captures 53 interdisciplinary factors influencing the adoption of sustainable design practices using new and improved design methods. The descriptive framework is compared to interdisciplinary literature to further clarify and explain the findings, highlighting both practical and theoretical implications. This research provides three main contributions to theory and practice: (1) Two new concepts are introduced and used to explain the empirical findings, which are referred to as the dualism of design methods, and the situational design problem; (2) Nine systemic barriers and eight propositions are formulated, which highlight the need for a paradigm shift in how design is practiced in industry, how cognitive biases inside organizations can lead to a state of pseudo-sustainability, and the need for improved information and data management capabilities in organizations; (3) Sustainable design thinking is proposed as an potential enabler to address several of the main barriers, as it aims to provide a base competence of sustainable design to systematically challenge cognitive biases inside organizations.

Toward Sustainable Global Product Development Performance: Exploring the Criticality of Organizational Factors and the Moderating Influence of Global Innovation Culture

In today’s dynamic and global landscape, innovation and globalization are intricately linked drivers that propel modern businesses forward, serving as indispensable pillars upon which organizations heavily rely to maintain their competitive edge. Leveraging innovation within the context of global product development (GPD) practices is imperative for organizations seeking to survive and effectively compete in the rapidly evolving marketplace. While preceding studies have primarily focused on the importance of individual and organizational capabilities, policies, and cultural factors in driving product development (PD) performance, they often overlook their interconnectedness within a global context. To address this gap, this study delves into the relationship between organizational factors and global product development performance (GPDP) while examining the moderating influence of global innovation culture (GIC). These organizational factors encompass technological innovation capabilities (TICs), team creativity (TC), dynamic capabilities (DCA), and competitive advantage (CA). Our hypothesis suggests a positive impact of these factors on GPD performance. Employing a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach through SMART-PLS 3, we analyzed data collected from 480 questionnaire forms distributed among registered global product development (GPD) organizations operating in China. The empirical findings underscore the significant influence of organizational factors on GPD performance, highlighting the critical role of global innovation culture in shaping these relationships. These insights shed light on the importance of establishing a harmonious balance between organizational culture and various factors to enhance interaction among organizational elements and optimize global product development performance. Ultimately, these efforts can lead to improvements in the overall effectiveness and sustained global product development.

The Optimization of Automobile Part Product Development Using Integrated Product Development (IPD)

This paper studies a new integrated product development (IPD) process at an automobile parts company. The process includes benchmarking and offers four optimization strategies for the new product development process: (1) re-structuring the new product development organization astraddle department teams, (2) reshaping the new product development and selection process already at the planning and conceptual design stages, (3) optimizing the design review process at the engineering stage, and (4) establishing a product development team with large project manager responsibilities in the industrialization stage so as to give full play to the guiding role of expert resources. This paper can help enhance the competitiveness of domestic auto parts enterprises compared to leading foreign auto parts enterprises.

A longitudinal case study on Nexus transformation: Impact on productivity, quality, and motivation

AbstractThere have been success stories reported regarding the adoption of agile software development methods in the industry. There also exist observations on their limitations. One of these limitations is scalability since agile methods like Scrum were originally designed for small software teams. Scalable agile frameworks were introduced to address this limitation. We conducted an industrial case study on the adoption of such a framework, called Nexus. Our study involves quantitative and qualitative evaluation based on observations within a product development organization over a period of 12 months. Scrum is used for the development of a product during the first 6 months of this period. Nexus is used in the remaining 6 months. Data are collected throughout the whole period for measuring productivity, quality, and team member motivation. Results suggest a significant increase in productivity and product quality after switching to Nexus. Team motivation was slightly improved as well.

Distinction Dynamics: A Form Analysis of Self-Descriptions in Agile Teams

Abstract Teams are the backbone and the most successful form of cooperation in contemporary product development organizations. Based on the agile mindset, many best practices of team organization have emerged. However, real teams do not always follow the blueprints of the methodology. They represent the complexity they face, which becomes evident in a situation where a global pandemic brings about dramatic changes in the contexts they operate in. This study is based on consultations with teams that sought outside support maneuvering their way through this complexity, and it looks for patterns in how they coped. How do teams describe their own journey? How do they set a focus and develop as teams? The study aims to identify and describe functional dynamics of decision-making in teams, to understand how structure and semantics, traditionally seen as separate, are interrelated in their morphogenesis.

Disruption in the meat industry: new technologies in nonmeat substitutes

After World War II, consumer patterns of food consumption changed dramatically. Initially, it was mobility, economic evolution, and home appliance technologies that induced a shift toward meals eaten outside of the home and to ready-to-eat foods at home. More recently, health concerns and sustainability issues shifted consumer tastes among meat products and gave rise to a change in attitudes about raising animals for human consumption. On the supply side, new technologies in nonmeat production enabled new producers, most notably Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, to enter as fringe competitors to vertically integrated, oligopolistic meat processors. Today, these nonmeat products represent a small, but growing, share of consumer expenditures at grocery stores, restaurants, and direct-to-consumer delivery channels. In this paper, we evaluate the disruption of the traditional meat industry through the lens of consumer spending trends and substitution among meat products and find that the development of alternative meat products is market-driven rather than policy-driven. Given these findings, we identify implications for product development and industrial organization.

Clustering Product Development Project Organization From the Perspective of Social Network Analysis

In product development (PD) organizations, coordinating technical dependencies among teams with different expertise in overlapping processes is a fundamental challenge. This article takes a more sophisticated approach than prior methodologies to improve coordination via organizational clustering, by accounting for both team structural and attribute similarity from the perspective of social network analysis. We built models to quantify the impact of the overlapping processes on the interaction strength among PD teams, which we then used to construct structural similarity by combining tie strength and social cohesion among teams via the design structure matrix. To evaluate the organization network, we propose social embeddedness-related centrality indices within (intracluster) and across (intercluster) team groupings. To facilitate knowledge sharing, we base team attribute similarity on product- and process-related expertise among teams. We integrate the modularity index and an improved silhouette index to find an optimal number of clusters, which we then incorporate with team similarity measures as inputs to a spectral clustering algorithm. An industrial example illustrates the proposed model. The clustering results reinforce several managerial practices but also yield new insights, such as how to measure similarity among teams based on organizational network characteristics and how structural and attribute similarities impact the optimal organizational structure.

Research examines mental health crisis around pregnancy

Twill, a digital therapeutics and health care product development and support organization, has partnered with the research firm, Nonfiction Research, to release “The Invisible Weight of Pregnancy,” an in‐depth report that sheds light on the gap between the need for and availability of mental health care among pregnant Americans, Business Wire reported in a press release on Nov. 3. Key findings of the mental health care crisis around pregnancy include.

Strategic Integration for Hardware and Software Convergence Complexity

Ever-increasing digitization of the physical world and products is driving the growth of software content in manufactured products that requires higher performance in product development and operational excellence to manage the higher project, product, and system complexity. Failure to effectively manage the growing complexity has undermined even companies with best-of-breed quality systems, denting brand equity and depressing sales. Unmanaged complexity is a risk factor for product development and manufacturing supply chains, threatening growth potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) that depends on products becoming smart and connected. Traditional product development organizations plan for a linear increase in the number of components and modules but not an exponential increase in possible interactions due to software. Complexity due to increasing software content in traditionally hardware products is analyzed from the perspective of innovation demand (such as the growth of IoT). Hardware/software convergence complexity is then modeled to determine the basis for strategic product integration. Component interaction coverage is found to provide strategic leverage for managing integration effectiveness.

Innovation Process for Problem Conceptualization

This paper presents a process designed to enable the injection of innovation and creativity into problem-solving and solution conceptualization of product development. The process can be used to enable teams and organizations to foster and inject creativity and innovation into a product development team, unit, or organization seeking unique and effective solutions to both old and new problems. The process requires transformational thinking that is a byproduct of following process steps that utilize reframing and re-scaffolding of understandings using metaphors and renaming, resulting in a set of solution-specific needs. Use of the process encourages the use of new and transformational ways through which to view a problem and drive potentially more successful outcomes. Specifically, the innovation process for problem conceptualization (IPPC) consists of three main steps—viewpoint analysis, spiral loop reframing, and transformational renaming—which are described in the context of an example problem.

Social Sustainability Work in Product Development Organizations: An Empirical Study of Three Sweden-Based Companies

Companies responsible for product development (PD) and manufacturing play an important role in supporting society in achieving sustainability, and yet they do not always include full sustainability considerations in PD decisions. The social dimension of sustainability has been largely neglected in the PD field and there is very little empirical evidence of social sustainability implementation in general. The aim of this paper is to investigate how social sustainability is currently included in PD organizations and what their motivations are to do so. Results from a comparative case study approach with three organizations include rich descriptions across four dimensions: The scope of the work and their view of interdependencies with other social systems, their definition of social sustainability and the issues they work with, what guides strategic decisions, and how this internal work is structured. The results reveal that the three product development organizations are heterogenous in their approaches to social sustainability and that the more advanced approach shows a better understanding of the complexity of social sustainability and a broader perspective of its interdependencies, which goes hand-in-hand with a way of organizing that overcomes traditional hierarchies and allows for more collaborative and strategic work in this area. This systems perspective also drives what issues are included in an organization’s work; scope and definition of social sustainability become more encompassing and aligned. Finally, our study shows that social sustainability impacts connected to products’ lifecycles, when addressed, are done so by functions outside design activities, as opposed to product developers. A greater understanding of how companies currently approach social sustainability and what challenges they might face in integrating it in organizational and design related practices has been called for; our paper contributes to this but acknowledges that more work is needed.

A structured approach to measuring and optimizing the organizational architecture in global product development projects

In global product development projects, coordinating complex technical communication among teams across time zones in the overlapping process is a fundamental challenge. To optimize a global product development organization to reduce the negative impact of time separation on coordination, this article presents an innovative approach to solve two key problems: how to quantify the coordination among distributed teams and how to identify efficient global product development organization. We build structural models to capture the coordination dependency strength among global product development teams from the time separation and overlapping process perspectives, employing the design structure matrix method. Then, we analyze the factors that influence synchronous and asynchronous communication due to time separation. We also apply the random walk method to identify a team similarity matrix, taking into account the direct and indirect dependency relationships among teams associated with their performed activities. Finally, we use the team similarity matrix as an input to a spectral clustering algorithm to identify the clustering strategy for the global product development organizational architecture, yielding and reinforcing several managerial insights, including how to analyze the coordination among global product development teams as well as how the offshoring costs impact the clustered organization.

RISK MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: RISK IDENTIFICATION, ASSESSMENT, AND MITIGATION – A LITERATURE REVIEW

AbstractThis paper reviews the literature on risk management practices and methods in product design and development. Based on an expert workshop by the Risk Management Processes and Methods in Design Special Interest Group within the Design Society and literature review, three key areas are discussed: risk identification, assessment, and mitigation. In each area, researchers have described practices that are used in product development organizations, proposed new methods to support risk management processes and decision-making, and generated evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of these activities.

Investigating the underlying attributes of a reliability-focused improvement and culture in manufacturing and product development organizations

Product reliability is essential to its acceptance in the current competitive market. Hence, organizations must understand the significance of attributes that support reliability-focused improvement and culture in manufacturing and product development. The aim of the study is, therefore, to examine literature for key underlying attributes that support reliability-focused improvement and culture. Based on literature information, a questionnaire designed and used to analyze experts and managers judgment about the above-mentioned problem. Twenty-two attributes are considered in the questionnaire. Using manufacturing firms in Nigeria, 114 questionnaires were administered—the questionnaire’s response rate was 97.33%. Single-factor ANOVA method was used to analyze the collected questionnaires. The calculated F value 1.9293 is greater than the F crit 1.5601, while the calculated P value (0.0068) is less than the significance level (0.05). Hence, it was deduced that the attributes were significant and they support reliability-focused improvement initiative and culture in manufacturing systems. This result is beneficial to product development companies because it provides design and industrial managers with an in-depth understanding of reliability concerns of products and an in-depth understanding of the control, prevention and elimination of wastes and losses in their products.

Digitalization of a Lean Product Development Organization

In manufacturing, lean strategies are already widely distributed and have been research topic for years. However, the transfer of lean strategies to administrative areas is current research area. Some companies already implemented lean strategies in engineering departments. But since product development is performed more and more in globally distributed project teams, analogous processes don’t work any longer. It becomes necessary to digitize the lean product development approaches. This paper gives a brief overview of the current state of research in the fields of lean management, distributed teams and digitalization. A short overview of existing project management software is given and the gap for the implementation of digital Lean Product Development (dLPD) is described. The last section shows the experience from the authors own projects and studies and explains a first orientation towards the implementation of dLPD and outlines the need for further research.

Toward a Contingent Model of Mirroring Between Product and Organization: A Knowledge Management Perspective

Much of the contemporary modularity literature subscribes to the idea that increased product modularity is associated with advantageous increase in organizational modularity. Known as the “mirroring hypothesis,” this proposed relationship states that the structure of a product development organization and the architecture of the product being developed would “mirror” each other. This correspondence suggests that product modularity can be a substitute for overt organizational coordination mechanisms, thereby increasing the efficiency of product development. However, empirical research to date provides inconsistent support for the hypothesis and the extant literature has yet to converge on a systematic explanation for the inconsistent findings. Moreover, important conceptual inconsistencies still remain in the extant literature, which impede cumulative knowledge development. As the first step toward reconciliation, this conceptual paper puts forth a contingent model of mirroring between product and organization, based on the systematic examination of the requisite architectural knowledge that enables product and organizational modularity. The resulting contingent model clearly articulates the knowledge prerequisite of mirroring and its underpinning causal mechanism. Based on the contingent model, a set of propositions are derived to explain and predict when the mirroring relationship will hold and when it will not. This paper thus contributes to the literature by helping to resolve persistent conceptual inconsistencies and reconcile conflicting empirical findings. In addition, explicating the knowledge prerequisite for mirroring places boundary conditions on product modularity as an effective substitute for overt exercise of managerial coordination, which helps us gain a deeper understanding of modularity as a design strategy and how complex innovations can be organized, and provides a basis for more nuanced prescriptions for practitioners to assess the relationships between their product and organization design.

Game-Based Learning of Knowledge Reuse in Engineering Education

AbstractThis paper presents an educational game fostering a new experience-based approach to teaching knowledge transfer using a codification strategy alone. The goal is to address and highlight some common issues and challenges that occur during knowledge transfer in product development and that are often difficult for especially students to grasp through exclusively a theoretical teaching approach. The game is introduced to 60 students in the final year of their Master's curriculum. In parallel, the game has been applied in a similar setting in a comparable higher educational institution, as well as in a product development organization.“Sometimes you win—other times you lose and learn.”

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF RADICAL TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION INTO THE NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Product developers are increasingly often faced with the decision of whether or not to adopt new technologies into their own new product development (NPD) processes. Adopting a resource-based perspective, we posit that the adoption of radical technologies into the NPD process, such as remote collaborative design, virtual reality, and simulation systems, can help improve NPD performance. At the same time, these adoptions are likely to slow down product launch. Just as consumers struggle to integrate radical technologies during the short-term, we propose that new product developers will face a similar learning curve. Therefore, we investigate potential moderators that could help product developers quickly integrate radical technologies and lessen their negative influence on product launch timeliness. A wide-ranging survey of 249 product managers sponsored by an international product development organisation is used in this study. The results reveal that while the adoption of radical technologies benefits NPD performance, the adoption tends to slow down the product launch process. However, cross-functional leadership within the organisation helps to lessen this negative influence on launch timeliness. The results from this study offer product managers practical guidelines for successfully adopting radical technologies into the NPD process and mitigating risks.

Integrating Technical Debt Management and Software Quality Management Processes: A Normative Framework and Field Tests

Despite the increasing awareness of the importance of managing technical debt in software product development, systematic processes for implementing technical debt management in software production have not been readily available. In this paper we report on the development and field tests of a normative process framework that systematically incorporates steps for managing technical debt in commercial software production. The framework integrates processes required for technical debt management with existing software quality management processes prescribed by the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK), and it contributes to the further development of software-specific extensions to the PMBOK. We partnered with three commercial software product development organizations to implement the framework in real-world software production settings. All three organizations, irrespective of their varying software process maturity levels, were able to adopt the proposed framework and integrate the prescribed technical debt management processes with their existing software quality management processes. Our longitudinal observations and case-study interviews indicate that the organizations were able to accrue economic benefits from the adoption and use of the integrated framework.

Knowledge reuse in industrial practice: evaluation from implementing engineering checksheets in industry

In multi-domain product development organizations, there is a continuous need to transfer captured knowledge between engineers to enable better design decisions in the future. The objective of this paper is to evaluate how engineering knowledge can be captured, disseminated and (re)used by applying a knowledge reuse tool entitled Engineering Checksheet (ECS). The tool was introduced in 2012 and this evaluation has been performed over the 2017–2018 period. This case study focused on codified knowledge in incremental product development with a high reuse potential both in and over time. The evaluation draws conclusions from the perspectives of the knowledge workers (the engineers), knowledge owners and knowledge managers. The study concludes that the ECS has been found to be valuable in enabling a timely understanding of technological concepts related to low level engineering tasks in the product development process. Hence, this enables knowledge flow and, in particular, reuse among inexperienced engineers, as well as providing quick and accurate quality control for experienced engineers. The findings regarding knowledge ownership and management relate to the need for clearly defining a knowledge owner structure in which communities of practice take responsibility for empowering engineers to use ECS and as knowledge evolves managing updates to the ECS.