Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-91). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (MScIng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

As the consumption trend has shifted to personal uniqueness, the traditional mass production of a single product has already been replaced by a small amount of various production to match consumption pattern. To meet challenge imposed by the market, manufacturers must change tactics and methods in their R&D activities. Consumers have already taken the high-quality products or services for granted, hoping to obtain the desired products or services that as soon as possible. The manufacturer expects to push new products or services to the market earlier than the competitors¡¦ move in order to gain extra profit margins. Higher price can be sold for a product pushed earlier to the market than a later product with the similar function. The products that lag behind in the market introduction will suffer lower prices or no profit. The manufacturer always wants to clear out the stock of existing products to control costs, and attempts to introduce new products or new services with more new functions before followers do. The purpose is to dominate the market and let followers not to enjoy profit margins. So, how to speed up the products¡¦ lifecycle should be the goal for enterprises to pursue. Recently, each enterprise emphasizes the core competencies, keep and strengthen the strong abilities of enterprises, and conducts outsourcing the less competitive products to those companies that are familiar with related manufacturing technologies. In the process a new product is developed or the modification for the product design has taken place. Questions arise as to : (1) how to transmit information to the person who must know as soon as possible? (2) how to guarantee the product information that the research personnel receive is the correct edition? Collaborative Product Commerce between the organizations will encounter more difficulties and challenges than the Collaborative Product Commerce within the organization. And this subject has already become serious challenges in the supply chain. The products function has grown more complicated, and a lot of unconfirmed factors exist in the development of new products. While the project developed carries on, customers¡¦ requirement, manufacturing technology and restriction of engineering ability, and the restriction of the supplier's engineering ability, may all influence the new product engineering. So while the new product development project carries on, because of these changes they will cause design modification or manufacturing operation modification, in order to enable development of the products to maintain integrally, and reach the goal of the project. So how to use PLM system to coordinate with among different functional organization department, and to coordinate inter-organization project team members, have become the main issues of this thesis. For Semiconductor Industry, Taiwan is the most important manufacture area of the world, from IC design, wafer fabrication, wafer probing, IC packing and final test, etc. Taiwan has a entire and strong supply chains. Count according to Dataquest, the global semiconductor assembly and testing industry subcontractor, Taiwan got the 43.7% market share in 2005, nearly have about 30% of leading disparity with No. two U.S.A. with scale of 6,641 million dollars, it is obvious Taiwan is the leading status of the industry in the whole world. This research takes case A Company as an example, and compares the new product development procedure before PLM implementation and after, including the project workflow, data access, information sharing, knowledge sharing, decision making and information security, in order to offer a reference model for the manufacturing industry especially semiconductor assembly and testing industry of Taiwan to implement PLM System.

Yes / Product design decomposition and synthesis is a constant challenge with its continuously increasing complexity at each level of abstraction. Currently, design decomposition and synthesis analytical tasks are mostly accomplished via functional and structural methods. These methods are useful in different phases of design process for product definition and architecture but limited in a way that they tend to focus more on ‘what’ and less on ‘how’ and vice versa. This paper combines a functional representation tool known as System State Flow Diagram (a solution independent approach), a solution search tool referred as Morphology Table, and Design Structure Matrix (mainly a solution dependent tool). The proposed approach incorporates Multiple Domain Matrix (MDM) to integrate the knowledge of both solution independent and dependent analyses. The approach is illustrated with a case study of solar robot toy, followed by its limitations, future work and discussion.

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BOF slag is a co-product generated from Basic Oxygen steelmaking process with annual production of 1.3 million tons approx. Because of its unique physical and chemical properties, it was considered as waste in the past and dumped to the ocean. After research and development, the BOF slag was used as sea-shore embankment and landfill material. Then it was registered as a product and was further used as land filler of temporary roads and parking lots. For now, BOF slag can be used as engineering materials such as asphalt concrete aggregates and Controlled Low Strength Material. Advancing waste recycling to promote resources optimization is an essential factor to industrial sustainable development. It also meets the global trends of sustainable use of resources and sustainable development of economy and society. Investigating the process of BOF slag resourcilization, it is concluded that the center of the development frame of recycled products is waste resourcilization. The steps to completely solve pollution problems including: input of human and natural resources, basic research and development, and finally converting waste into products. Meanwhile, governmental regulations must not be violated. Relevant regulations, domestic and international experiences and practices, and market investigation must be considered to confirm market need and opportunities for development. After the above are finished, the work team can be formed to start research and development. The recycled product development process can be divided into 7 major stages, including basic properties analysis, selection of application direction, technological research and evaluation, economical feasibility analysis, trial production and market testing, certification and specification modification, commercialization and promotion.

This dissertation studies the relationship of product adaptation and buyer behavior. By standardizing products, it was possible for organizations to produce in large scale and make them accessible for many different markets. Nevertheless, these different markets also have particularities which cannot be ignored and therefore, product adaptation is necessary to some extent; even for standardized products. Organizations should then optimize their product adaptation police in order to reach an assertive marketing strategy. In this regard, this study develops a model which predicts product adaptation from the understanding of buyer behavior. The understanding of buyer behavior, from the seller organization perspective, can provide organizations with a wide range of information to predict product adaptation.  It was concluded, by using the case of Volvo, that organizations can optimize their marketing strategy by predicting product adaptation from observing and understanding their buyer´s behavior looking at the following variables: environmental influences focusing as well on the industry and segment, organizational factors, motivational factors and the nature of decision-making. Besides these variables, the data coming from after-sale processes and trend reports also help to predict product adaptation.

This research is to understand the business strategy of making products luxurious. Owing to more and more serious poverty gaps in our social and economic environment, ¡§M¡¨ type society becomes an important issue for everyone. ¡§M¡¨ type society makes the rich people being richer and the poor people being poorer,. This phenomenon will affect consumer behaviors and whole market environment. According to the study of AC Nielson¡]2006¡^, more than 50% people in Taiwan tend to save more money in daily life for buying more their favorites or luxury goods instead. In this situation, companies should take special strategies to face this challenging new impact in the market. Therefore, the strategy of making products luxurious is one of best choices to try. For solving this situation, many companies have made their products luxurious successfully such as Acer (Ferrari notebook products), Toyota (Lexus automobile), and Giant (bike). These firms develop from middle market position to high market position, and make their product price more expensive, more high quality and more luxurious. Furthermore, their luxury products sold successfully in their target segments. All these cases are successful examples showing the effects of strategy of making products luxurious, accordingly this research sort out the precise strategies and methods through these successful case studies. Through using multiple cases study method, this research discusses the practicable ways to do the strategy of making products luxurious. Moreover, this research also goes through the conceptions of product positioning, the definition of luxury, product strategy, product line extended to build the conceptual model for this study. In the end, this research has integrated the some results. The key factor of the strategy of making products luxurious is offering high quality than the same type products. Next, the brand is the second important factor, a firm that make this strategy successfully must has a good brand image, not a ¡§luxury brand¡¨ image. Customers can get the good experience through products quality and performance. Therefore combining these results the research concludes that the products quality and performances are the core factors of the strategy of making products luxurious.

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