Product Development Organizations Research Articles

Usability in product development practice; an exploratory case study comparing four markets

This study explored how usability was dealt with in four product development organizations active in different sectors: high-end automotive, professional printers and copiers, office coffee makers and fast moving consumer goods. The primary differentiators of the selected cases were whether they were targeting businesses or consumers and the degree of product complexity. Interviews with 19 product development practitioners were conducted, focussing on three topics: 1) the product development process and the integration of user involvement, 2) multidisciplinary teamwork, and 3) organizational attitude towards usability. Based on the interviews, context descriptions of the companies were created and barriers and enablers for usability were identified. To verify the findings and to discuss remaining issues a feedback workshop was held in which the primary contact from each company participated. The results indicate that differences in product–market combination lead to differences in organizational attitude towards usability. The prioritization of usability in an organization seems to be influenced by the degree of product complexity (complex products are more prone to suffer from usability issues) and whether developers think that usability is a purchase consideration for their clients. The product–market combination a company targets also affects the methods for user-centred design that a company can apply and that are relevant. What methods for user-centred design are used also seems to be influenced by the attitude towards usability: if usability is considered more important, methods that require more resources can be applied.

When Research Meets Development: Antecedents and Implications of Transfer Speed

This paper focuses on the organization of new product development in large,R&D‐intensive firms. In these firms, research and development activities are often separated. Research is conducted in dedicated research projects at specialized research labs. Once research results are achieved by research projects, they are transferred to business units for further development and commercialization. We investigate the speed whereby research projects transfer their first research results to business units (hereafter:transfer speed). In particular, we analyze the antecedents and performance implications of transfer speed. Based on data of 503 research projects from aEuropeanR&Dintensive manufacturing firm, our results suggest that a fast transfer speed (as measured by the time it takes for a research project to develop and transfer its first research result to business units) is associated with a better research performance (as measured by the total number of transfers the research project generates). Moreover, we find that different types of externalR&Dpartners—science‐based and market‐based partners—play distinct roles in speeding up project first research transfers. While market‐based partnerships (i.e., customers and suppliers) generally contribute to a faster transfer of first research results, science‐based partnerships (i.e., universities and research institutions) only speed up first research transfers of technologically very complex projects. Our results also show that early patent filings by research projects accelerate first research transfers.

It Won't Fit! For Innovative Products, Sometimes That's for the Best

The degree of overlap (i.e., fit) between product development organizations' resources and the product development projects pursued has powerful performance implications. Drawing on organizational learning theory and the resource‐based view, this research conceptualizes and empirically tests the interrelationships between the levels of fit, innovativeness, speed to market, and financial new product performance. After reviewing the research literature relevant to resource fit and new product performance, the level of innovativeness is posited to be an important moderating and mediating factor, which is validated by analysis of data gathered from 279 product developing firms. Technological fit has a negative direct effect on both technological and market innovativeness, while the use of existing marketing resources (i.e., a high degree of marketing fit) positively impacts technological innovativeness. This suggests, consistent with findings from market orientation research, that a deep, long‐held customer understanding can promote technological innovativeness. The moderating hypotheses proposed are also well supported: First, a high degree of marketing fit has a more positive impact on performance for market innovative products (e.g., products which address a new target market or use a nontraditional channel for the firm). Drawing on a deep customer understanding is more critical to performance for market innovative products. Conversely, the benefits of marketing fit are limited where market innovativeness is lacking. Interestingly, the counterpart moderating role of technological innovativeness on technological fit's performance effect is not significant; the level of technological innovativeness does not significantly impact the performance impact of technological fit. There are also significant moderating effects across dimensions. Our results show that the financial benefit of using existing marketing resources is lessened for technologically innovative products. Technological innovations necessitate drastic adaptation of marketing resources (i.e., channel and brand); firms drawing only on existing marketing resources for a technologically innovative new product will incur reduced profit. Similarly, the positive implications of using existing technological resources are limited for products which are highly market innovative. Generally, resource fit is seen to have an (oft‐overlooked) dark side in product development, though several of our findings suggest that marketing resources are more flexible than are technological resources.

Integrated Solution for Timely Delivery of Customer Change Requests: A Case Study of Using DevOps Approach

Numerous past studies have indicated a strong linkage between customer satisfaction and business performance exhibited through timely responses and delivery of customer requests. As the enterprise software industry is shifting to capabilities such as timely delivery of new features, fast delivery of customization requests, and close collaboration between customers and software development (including DevOps), this study examined the usage of a software tool to accelerate the responses to customer change requests within a product development organization. This paper analyzes a comprehensive case study (from conception to deployment) of a prototype created by IBM Rational Software AM release team to collect, analyze, monitor the flow of customer change requests for a set of products. The results of this work have led to a more accessible, frequent and informative tracking and reporting system that has significantly reduced the response delivery time for customers. The implication of this study could be applied to many software development companies to improve customer responses and promote open development and DevOps processes. This study is only limited to one firm from a particular industry sector, but nonetheless it offers future exploration opportunities for researchers and practitioners to better utilize currently available resources within their organization to increase customer satisfaction. This study also suggests a cost-effective way to facilitate collaboration between development and project management teams.

A Maturity Model for Sustainability in New Product Development

OVERVIEW:This article describes the development of a maturity model for assessing and guiding R&D organizations in creating innovative sustainable products and services that drive growth. While sustainability in the broadest sense includes people, planet, and profit, the opportunities for R&D and new product development (NPD) organizations to influence sustainability are typically focused on the environmental aspects of sustainability. Therefore, the maturity model developed in this work focuses primarily on environmental sustainability. The assessment tool allows a company to benchmark itself as it progresses along the maturity continuum from beginning through improving, succeeding, and leading. The sustainability maturity model and assessment tool can be used by teams or individuals to benchmark progress on the journey to integrate sustainability into NPD for competitive advantage. The model was validated using data gathered from 20 companies and by comparing this model with other sustainability ranking systems.

Structuring Work Distribution for Global Product Development Organizations

This study describes (through an application) a novel approach toward organizing work distribution across globally distributed design and development centers of a product development (PD) organization. While there exist several studies (and modeling applications) for work distribution and allocation for manufacturing and supply chain networks, those related to product development organizations are limited to qualitative suggestions such as offshoring of modular tasks. However, most PD efforts are characterized by significant complexity in information sharing and information dependency among PD tasks (represented by coupling in the system architecture of the firm), thus preventing the identification of modular tasks. Also, redesigning the architecture to introduce modularity has associated risks of costs and product integrity. We demonstrate a methodology to organize work distribution globally in an industrial setting, utilizing the design structure matrix to quantify the system architecture of the firm. Our optimization results show significant cost savings through a restructured PD organization. On analysis of the results, we make two significant observations: (a) while offshoring based on modularity is generally appropriate, it is not the whole answer, as there exists a trade‐off between the efficiency of performing specific PD tasks at the offshore location and the modularity of the task; and (b) firms should successively increase work allocation to the offshore location, benefiting from capability improvements through learning effects.

Assembling Creative Teams in New Product Development Using Creative Team Familiarity

Creativity is strongly influenced by the way individuals are organized. One of the most difficult and important challenges when managing innovation is to identify the individuals within an organization who must work closely with each other to maximize the generation of creative ideas. This paper aims to inform managers of new product development (NPD) organizations about forming creative teams. To do so, we extend the notion of team familiarity (i.e., the extent to which team members have worked together before becoming members of a team) by considering the quality of past interactions. We define creative team familiarity as the degree to which team members have triggered the generation of creative ideas in one another during task-related interactions prior to joining the team. This paper argues that a high level of creative team familiarity (rather than simply a high level of team familiarity) is positively associated with a team's capability to produce innovative outcomes. We test this hypothesis in a unique empirical setting involving participants in an international executive MBA program. We also illustrate the implications of our findings by identifying members in a real NPD organization who would form a creative task force with maximum level of creative team familiarity.

Projective customer competence: Projecting future customer needs that drive innovation performance

Projective customer competence is the ability of a product development organization to both understand as well as shape the future needs of customers. To conceptualize this competence and establish its antecedents and performance implications, we draw upon the literature on inter-organizational relationships and innovation. Based on survey data from managers involved with business to business product development, validated with secondary financial data and in-depth interviews, we establish measurement properties for projective customer competence and demonstrate that this competence develops through customer relationships characterized by relational embeddedness, knowledge redundancy and interactivity. Projective customer competence is also shown to have positive implications for both innovativeness and financial performance. Surprisingly, relational embeddedness is shown to be the strongest predictor of projective customer competence, and, while knowledge redundancy helps build projective customer competence, it also has a negative impact on innovativeness.

A Structured Approach to Forming Creative Teams in New Product Development

Creativity is strongly influenced by the way individuals are organized. One of the most difficult and important challenges when managing innovation is to identify the individuals within an organization who must work closely with each other to maximize the generation of creative ideas. This paper aims to inform managers of new product development (NPD)organizations about forming creative teams. To do so, we extend the notion of team familiarity (i.e., the extent to which team members have worked together before becoming members of a team) by considering the quality of past interactions. We define creative team familiarity as the degree to which team members have triggered the generation of creative ideas in one another during task-related interactions prior to joining the team. This paper argues that a high level of creative team familiarity (rather than simply a high level of team familiarity) is positively associated with a team’s capability to produce innovative outcomes. We test this hypothesis in a unique empirical setting involving participants in an international executive MBA program. We also illustrate the implications of our findings by identifying members in a real NPD organization who would form a creative task force with maximum level of creative team familiarity.

Factors Impacting Innovation Acceptance in a Product Development Organization: Utilizing Technology Acceptance Model

Numerous product development (PD) organizations have integrated innovative products in order to remain competitive and retain their customer base. The major goal of this study is to assist managers in the selection of appropriate innovative CAD technology for their organizations by focusing on eight critical factors that could guide their decision-making process when recommending specific innovative CAD technologies: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, organization support, organizational size, cost effectiveness, system quality, organizational need, and function effectiveness. The theoretical foundation used for this study was the technology acceptance model (TAM). Parametric statistic methods were used to test perceptions of decision makers toward innovative CAD technologies. Results indicated perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, organizational support, cost effectiveness, system quality, organizational need, and functional effectiveness are important attributes in the decision process of acceptance of innovative CAD technologies. The positive relationship indicates that when these seven variables increased, the intent to adopt increased as well.

Interrelations between Modular Product Architecture and Product Development Organization

The main purpose of our research is to analyze the interrelations between modular product architecture and product development organizations. Using a qualitative case study approach we specifically ask what the interrelations between the product architecture and the product development organization are and how one affects the other. We investigate five international manufacturing companies developing modular product families. Our results provide evidence for the existence of a two-way causality between modular product architecture and organizational modularity.

Introducing robust design in product development: Learning from an initiative at Volvo

Robust design (RD) has a large potential to contribute to product and process improvements providing increased customer value. However, it has shown to be difficult to obtain these benefits in practice. This study aims to evaluate and learn from an initial approach to introducing RD within the Volvo Group. It is based on three pilot cases within the product development organisation of a business unit. Data were collected through formal interviews and informal dialogues with pilot participants, supplemented by existing documentation of the pilot cases. The main finding was that a RD initiative, characterised by ‘tool-pushing’ and with a predefined solution introduced by an external consultant, faced many obstacles and could not create a sustainable result. Instead, it was found that there is a need to involve engineers and create a learning culture in which RD principles can become a natural part of work practices. This study identified six obstacles to the success of the initiative, which were perceived as learning points for a broader application of RD at the company. This underscores that RD initiatives can also be hampered by similar types of obstacles that have been identified in research on other change processes.

Creativity, trust and systematic processes in product development

This paper addresses the challenge of striking a balance between, on one hand, mitigating uncertainty through the existence of systematic processes and structures and, on the other, stimulating creativity through allowable variation in work processes and structures. Both objectives are fundamental aspects of product development work. Our main finding is that both objectives can be achieved simultaneously. We introduce trust as a mediating variable. We show first, that being systematic in the processes for obtaining information and applying explicit organizational rules and structures in product development work creates an atmosphere of trust in the organization. Second, we show that trust increases creativity. The paper contributes to an understanding of how and why trust is important in product development organizations and of how trust can be actively managed. Above all, the paper contributes to the understanding of how uncertainty and creativity should be managed in organizations conducting product development.

Aiming at innovation: a case study of innovation capabilities in the Swedish defence industry

Many firms are struggling with altering and developing their organisational capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to organisational capability theory by providing insights from an empirical setting of the successive process of developing capabilities to respond to sudden and disruptive changes to the market context. This paper is based on an exploratory interview study of a Swedish defence supply organisation. We argue that to develop capabilities, firms need to question the logic behind how to generate new knowledge. The organisation, we studied, did not question the overall assumptions in its development organisation, nor did it revisit the underlying norms and values of its product development organisation. The initiatives it launched in response to change and to develop their capabilities were ambitious, but insufficient; they did not address the critical issue of knowledge generation. Changes in the context pinpoint the strategic change aspect of the development of innovating capabilities.

Improving Product Quality and Reliability with Customer Experience Data

Advance technology development and wide use of the World Wide Web have made it possible for new product development organizations to access multi‐sources of data‐related customer complaints. However, the number of customer plaints of highly innovative consumer electronic products is still increasing; that is, product quality and reliability is at risk. This article aims to understand why existing solutions from literature as well as from industry to deal with these increasingly complex multiple data sources are not able to manage product quality and reliability. Three case studies in industry are discussed. On the basis of the case study results, this article also identifies a new research agenda that is needed to improve product quality and reliability under this circumstance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Use Error Analysis in a Medical Device Product Development Cycle

Product development organizations have well-established processes in assessing potential hazards for both process and design. However, these processes either do not apply to use error or they treat the human component of systems in a superficial, non-formal way. While some user-centered effort is directed at analyzing and reducing error, with a reliance on traditional user-centered activities, formal human factors methods that specifically address use error and regulatory needs are scarce. A formal Use Error Analysis (UEA) process was developed to identify potential use error during initial product design. This process generates an exhaustive, predictive list of use errors. Then potential users familiar with the product environment determine the frequency by which the error would occur and the severity of the effects. Once it is determined which errors should be mitigated, the process allows product risk assessment teams to determine the probable causes of the use error. These causes are directly addresse...

2.4.2 A Framework for Supporting the Transition to Lean Systems Engineering

AbstractLean Thinking has long been recognized as an important approach to sustainable and comprehensive improvement of products as well as business processes. In the area of systems, the Lean approach is particularly attractive because of its joint improvement of systems engineering effectiveness and efficiency. Yet, to date no comprehensive framework has been put forth for managing the transition to lean systems engineering in a real‐world product development organization engaged in day‐to‐day business. This paper presents a novel 3‐stage framework for managing the transition to Lean Systems Engineering, with special focus on aspects such as lean awareness and target definition as well as active participation of employees and for capability build‐up during the transition phase in order to ensure top‐to‐bottom buy‐in. The framework is based on actual consulting experience of the authors; for three recent example transitions the application of the framework is discussed. Based on these application experiences, a number of significant conclusions with regard to the proposed framework can be drawn covering the effectiveness of people‐related measures, value stream analysis and design activities. Significant opportunities for further work remain, in particular in the areas of further application of the framework, correlation of current and future state scenarios and associated transition strategies with standard management consulting case scenarios as well as further development of lean training exercises for systems engineering methods as applied to product development.

Inter‐individual knowledge transfer and performance in product development

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how knowledge transfer between individuals influences performance in product development (PD) organizations and whether this influence is contingent to the degree of novelty in the PD work.Design/methodology/approachA set of hypotheses describing the relationships between knowledge transfer by codification (KTC), knowledge transfer by personalization (KTP) and performance is developed. It is hypothesized that performance decreases when KTC interacts with novelty, but improves when KTP and novelty interact. Survey‐based data were collected from 287 knowledge workers across 19 PD units of Indian manufacturing companies, and multiple regression analyses were performed to test the hypotheses.FindingsOf the eight hypotheses stated, only one was supported by the data. KTP significantly influences the efficiency of PD work, highlighting the relative importance of personalized, as compared to repository‐based, knowledge transfer to performance. No significant interaction effects of KTC/KTP with novelty were detected.Practical implicationsThe findings strongly suggest that PD work can benefit from interpersonal relationships and knowledge exchange, something that requires diligent cultural interventions.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, the contingent effects of novelty on the productivity of inter‐individual knowledge transfer have received little, if any, attention to date. This study helps improve understanding of the nature of knowledge transfer that is best suited where the nature of work involves creativity.

Pros and cons of lean visual planning: experiences from four product development organisations

This paper investigates the benefits and limitations of lean visual planning at four technology-based companies. Even though Lean product development is getting increased attention, there are few industrial cases investigated outside Toyota. Benefits identified are efficient communication, shared understanding, ability to prioritise tasks and efficient levelling of workloads. Limitations with the method include using it in geographically scattered teams, storing historical information and seeing causal links. The conclusion is that visual planning constitutes a method that is useful for product development teams that need efficient ways of communicating and coordinating team work.

Enhanced Mechanical Calibration of Dissolution Test Equipment

INTRODUCTION In late 2009 the GSK R&D Product Development organization began implementing a new approach to calibration of dissolution test equipment, specifically Apparatus 1 and 2 (baskets and paddles). The new approach, enhanced mechanical calibration (EMC), which was recommended by FDA, follows the ASTM International Standard Procedure ASTM 2503-07 (1). This article explains why this change was made, what was done to effect the change, how it was accomplished, and things we learned in the process.