Abstract Nonaka and Takeuchi¡¦s book ¡§The Knowledge Creating Company. ¡¨ crystallized the intricacy of knowledge management and its importance in the organization¡¦s long- term success and survival. However, the lack of empirical work in this area has not advanced our understanding of this important phenomenon. Previous studies have focused on limited aspects of the overall knowledge management process. As a result, our understanding of knowledge management is limited to certain micro-level aspects, rather understanding the whole process. This research creatively employs Knowledge Value Chain model as a knowledge management framework. How to enrich knowledge management to promote innovation and develop new product is one of the most important issue to business competition. This research will study the impact of knowledge management to the performance of new product development activities. The ability of technological resource management and industrial technological competitive intensity are the two factors which will be consider as interfacial variables in the research design. Follow by questionnaire survey, statistic analysis is used to test several hypotheses. Finally, a knowledge management procedure will be proposed. We expect the results of this study will not only help us to understand the theoretical implication but also the implement procedure.

In Taiwan, ¡§ networks for development of new products¡¨, a method normally used in the Bicycle's industry, which the method includes not only the efforts from internal personnel's participation in developing new products but also innovations obtained by mutually-contributed thinking with external sources. Due to this mutual ways of thinking is fast and concentrated, the final results of the new product are usually uncertain so that such unfavorable factors like unsatisfied production in the brand-marketed company, bicycle manufacturer, and part manufacturer, hoard of inventories, changes of design, changes of manufacturing process...etc directly influenced on the efficiency of the whole industry. However, the whole industry still position to be very competitive in the world. It is believed that with the installment of B- to- B e-commerce, those unfavorable factors might be reduced and the whole industry could be even more competitive. Also by this installment, the operation of the companies will dramatically changes, which the competition within the industry become much complicated and have direct impulses to the leading industry of bicycle manufacturing.

Abstract Currently there is not much study references related to product collaboration development model. In general only a concept of ideas or case study, but to be specific on detail steps of operating efficiency with best practice configuration, workplace, and management which is lack. So building a proper collaborative product development strategy reduces man-made mistakes and avoids process lateness will be a useful solution. Therefore, this research is focus on OEM business model of automobile press die industry in Taiwan. To investigate the new product development phase of the business models, including Proposal, Planning, R&D Design, Laboratory Pilot Run, Engineering Pilot Run, Production Pilot Run, Mass Productions. Also explore collaboration design process and simulations of the enterprise headquarter, customers and supplier. At the end, the research is use the ARIS modeling tool to establish OEM reference model of automobile press die, to bring a useful practical experiences as reference.

The process of innovation remains challenging for companies in general and for small firms in particular. Limited resources constitute an obstacle on the small firm’s path towards market launch and the need for supportive measures is evident. Today, as the technology is developing at an exponential speed, the time-to-market shortens, underlining that the innovation challenge of small firms is an urgent matter. Given the limited resources of the small firms, this thesis defines the access to external competence as well as an established new product development process as crucial factors for successful innovation. Providing these necessary functions, a public intermediary, originating from policies, is considered a viable solution. The contribution of this thesis lies in investigating whether or not a private intermediary, not supported by policies, can provide the same functions as a public intermediary. In addition, the thesis expands the knowledge about the intermediary functions present in the innovation process by relating them to specific phases in a generalized new product development process. The results in this thesis are qualitative, based on a profound literary study as well as a comparative case study, examining two diverse kinds of intermediaries in a micro perspective. The first case is a public intermediary, operating with a strong business focus, as its mission is to economically strengthen the Swedish industry. The second case presents a technology based consultancy firm, acting as a private intermediary and centered on questions related to R&D. Applying Howells’ (2006) intermediation functions to the two diverse cases, a comparative study of their offered functions has been performed. The micro perspective study has proved the acknowledged intermediation functions to be applicable to specific phases in a generalized new product development process. As several functions appear in multiple phases of the new product development process, the generalized process is observed to be iterative. This notion questions previous definitions of the intermediation functions during an innovation process, as the processes have been simplified as linear in prior research. Using the generalized new product development process as framework for a comparative analysis, it has been concluded that the private intermediary can provide the same functions as the public intermediary. In extension, the private intermediary is able to offer additional services, not legally permitted for the public intermediary, such as selecting external actors and negotiating agreements. As the private intermediary can provide an extended assortment of functions, while not being dependent on government funding, the question of whether or not the public intermediary still fills a necessary function has been raised. However, additional values, such as objectivity and a non-profit-interest have been linked to the public intermediary. As these attributes are valuable to the small firm, further studies on the support not incorporated in the investigated functions are needed.

This study explores if augmented reality can be used to get a better feedback for usability testing. Augmented reality is being used in various fields like entertainment, medicine, etc., but this technology’s use for product development has been very limited. This study specifically explores if it could be used for product usability testing. For this study, a product that is already in the market will be used. First, the usability of the product was tested using traditional method, i.e., asking user to accomplish a specific task using that product and then gaining feedback using a questionnaire asking them about their opinions. Then the same product was modeled for augmented reality environment and then a different set of users were asked to accomplish the same task in AR environment. Same questionnaire was provided to these users for feedback. After that, the feedback received using the two methods was compared. The hypothesis presented in this thesis says that using augmented reality can help get a better or similar usability feedback as compared to traditional usability testing. This method might help reduce the cost of usability testing conducted on a large scale by reducing the need to have a fully developed product for testing. It will help in identifying usability issues before a product has been fully developed and thus, reducing the development cost.

This project aimed to design the interior of a Super Premium refrigerator and a freezer of Electrolux directed to a Chinese market. To carry out this, the user and its environment was analysed in detail in order to get as much information as possible to obtain a successful design. The market was also analysed to see the competitive products that other brands could have. Taking into account all the information collected in the analysis some innovative concepts were proposed and from these concepts a solution was obtained which met all the objectives. This final product fits with the daily life of the user. In addition, it gives a touch of innovation to the market of household appliances.

How to make teams Flexible without sacrificing their Efficiency? This is an important question especially in the context of Product Development (PD) organizations, as they operate in a dynamic environment and are highly team-driven. The answer to this question lies in understanding the role of all individual constituents that contribute to building Team Flexibility. One such constituent is teams’ Structure. This research work examines the role of Structural antecedents in building Flexibility into PD teams. This study considers PD Team Flexibility as a means to deal with both change and uncertainty. A conceptual framework of structural practices was developed to reflect this perspective. An ex-post facto survey based research design with Convenient Sampling technique was adopted for this study. Data was collected from 108 PD teams (both public and private sector) about their current structural practices, complexity of product development activity and their performances. The information collected from these teams was analysed to determine the key factors which would result in building Team Flexibility. The analysis of the data resulted in producing five antecedents. The results from the study suggest that, in general, designing structural practices centered on team ‘Participation and Control’ and ‘Time Bound Formalization’ antecedents helps in simultaneously achieving high Flexibility and Efficiency. The result also hints at the possibility of Large teams achieving both Flexibility and Efficiency with the introduction of appropriate practices designed around these antecedents. A caveat to the above claim is that complexity of PD activity would moderate the effectiveness of these antecedents and hence should be borne in mind before implementing them.

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