scholarly journals Knowledge-Sharing Strategies in Distributed Collaborative Product Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 194
Author(s):  
Sanjay Mathrani ◽  
Benjamin Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Late Stage ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Collaborative Product Development ◽  
Management Culture

Knowledge-sharing strategies are used across the industry as open innovation and distributed collaboration are becoming more popular to achieve technological competencies, faster time-to-market, competitiveness and growth. Sharing of knowledge can provide benefits to manufacturing and new product development (NPD) companies in improving their product quality and enhancing business potential. This paper examines the implementation of knowledge-sharing strategies in New Zealand aimed at bridging the physical locational issues to achieve collaborative benefits in NPD firms through an in-depth case study. The analysis of this only one, but interesting, case extends a holistic multi-mediation model by Pateli and Lioukas for the effect of functional involvement in a distributed collaborative product development environment. This study explores the external and internal knowledge transfer and how it affects early-stage, late-stage, and the overall product development process. Findings present a knowledge-sharing toolset that enhances innovation in all stages of product development overcoming the environmental factors to improve early and late-stage development through a two-way knowledge-transfer loop with distributed stakeholders. An encouraging management culture is found as key for transparent knowledge transfer across cross-functional teams. The organizational structure and management style play an important role for both external and internal distribution of knowledge.

On the Use of a Simplified New Product Development Process in an Early-Stage Firm

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tucker J. Marion ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
New Product ◽  
Consumer Product ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Established Firms ◽  
New Product Development Process

Disciplined product development has been a hallmark of mature companies for many decades, resulting in shorter development cycles, reduced costs, and higher quality products. Unfortunately, these tools and processes have typically been applied in large, well-established firms, not start-up companies. In this paper, we describe a simplified new product development process for early-stage firms and its application to a consumer product in which the process was executed during a 14-month development cycle. The process consists of 15-steps in 3-phases, two decision gates, and provides a step-by-step guide for development, with specific call-outs as to what, when, and where tools such as market segmentation, platform planning, industrial design, and cost modeling should be applied. The proposed process is applied to design a new consumer product, and the case study results are discussed with specific emphasis on costs, duration, and applicability of the process and its related engineering tools. Finally, we conclude with comments on the limitations of the proposed process, potential improvements, and future work.

The Fuzzy Front End: Concept Development in the Automotive Industry

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christer W. Elverum ◽  
Torgeir Welo ◽  
Martin Steinert
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Automotive Industry ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
New Product ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Fuzzy Front End ◽  
Front End

The fuzzy front end (FFE) of new product development (NPD) is a term that refers to the early stages of the innovation process. This paper investigates the FFE in the automotive industry and addresses the challenges of working in this phase of the innovation process, as well as the academic definition of the FFE relative to the real world. Two parts of the innovation process have been identified and characterized as FFE: the concept-work within satellite front-end departments and the work within the pre-development phase of the vehicle new product development process. It has been identified that one of the greatest challenges related to working in the FFE is developing viable concepts that will “sell” internally. Estimating and conveying the overall value of the final product in terms of costs and customer benefits are two of the key elements that make it difficult to achieve internal “buy in”. Furthermore, it is argued that the most common academic perception of the FFE seem to be inadequate since it only concerns work that ends with a go/no-go decision whether to continue into development or not. Consequently, it fails to capture early-stage development work of transformational innovations, where the decision of development has already been made and the uncertainty is related to the execution of the work — and — not the outcome. Semi-structured interviews with a total of eleven employees at seven different automotive OEMs form the basis for the conclusions made herein.

CORPORATE CHAMPIONS OF EARLY-STAGE PROJECT PROPOSALS AND THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF ORGANISATIONAL INERTIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 2050028
Author(s):  
HEIDI M. J. BERTELS ◽  
MURAD MITHANI ◽  
SIWEI ZHU ◽  
PETER A. KOEN
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Mba Students ◽  
Executive Mba ◽  
Using Data ◽  
To Receive

This study looks at the role of champions in the early stages of the product development process, when employees try to secure initial funding for project proposals. Project proposals that fail to receive funding never become part of the firm’s project pipeline; hence, it is critical to understand the champion’s role early on. Existing research on corporate champions is mostly focused on the later stages of the new product development process and has generally identified corporate champions as key to projects likely to face organisational resistance. However, several recent studies suggest that champions may prefer projects less likely to face organisational resistance. Using data from project proposals of executive MBA students across 78 large organisations, we find that champion support for the team is weaker for project proposals likely to evoke resistance and that such lower champion support further reduces the likelihood of high-resistance early-stage proposals to receive initial funding.

Conflict Management Styles and Interpersonal Conflict Between Marketing and R&D Personnel During the New Product Development Process

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (06) ◽  
pp. 1750034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chonlatis Darawong
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Conflict Management ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Interpersonal Conflict ◽  
New Product ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Task Conflict ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Relationship Conflict ◽  
Conflict Task

This paper investigates the direct impact of conflict management style on two types of interpersonal conflict: task and relationship conflict between marketing and R&D personnel during the new product development (NPD) process. The findings add to the structural contingency perspective pertaining to the study of conflict and provide a wider view of the beneficial role of conflict at the interpersonal level. The results show that task conflict is positively influenced by dominating and integrating styles, but is negatively influenced by a compromising style. In addition, relationship conflict is positively influenced by a dominating style but negatively influenced by integrating, obliging, and compromising styles. Key implications for marketing and R&D personnel are that they should typically use an integrating style in order to gain benefit from task conflict. However, they should avoid or compromise with a dominating person in order to minimize destructive outcomes from relationship conflict.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document