New Product Development (NPD) plays a critical role in the success of manufacturing firms. Activities in the product development process are dependent on the exchange of knowledge among NPD project team members. Increasingly, many organisations consider effective knowledge sharing to be a source of competitive advantage. However, the sharing of knowledge is often inhibited in various ways. This doctoral research presents an exploratory case study conducted at a multinational physical goods manufacturer. This investigation uncovered three, empirically derived and theoretically informed, barriers to knowledge sharing. They have been articulated as the lack of an explicit definition of information about the knowledge used and generated in the product development process, and the absence of mechanisms to make this information accessible in a multilingual environment and to disseminate it to NPD project team members. Collectively, these barriers inhibit a shared understanding of product development process knowledge. Existing knowledge management methodologies have focused on the capture of knowledge, rather than providing information about the knowledge and have not explicitly addressed issues regarding knowledge sharing in a multilingual environment. This thesis reports a prototype method and tool to facilitate knowledge sharing that addresses all three knowledge sharing barriers. Initially the research set out to identify and classify new product development process knowledge and then sought to determine what information about specific knowledge items is required by project teams. Based on the exploratory case findings, an ontology has been developed that formally defines information about this knowledge and allows it to be captured in a knowledge acquisition tool, thereby creating a knowledge base. A mechanism is provided to permit language labels to be attached to concepts and relations in the ontology, making it accessible to speakers of different languages. A dissemination tool allows the ontology and knowledge base to be viewed via a Web browser client. Essentially, the ontology and mechanisms facilitate a knowledge sharing capability. Some initial validation was conducted to better understand implementation issues and future deployment of the prototype method and tool in practice.

The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding on the application of the first stage of the innovation funnel and on the gaps in knowledge through an analysis and synthesis of the NPD and the Front End literature. Within this literature it has been found that different authors propose different steps for the innovation funnel. These steps are discussed and then synthesized and classified under three major stages namely: Ideas/Concepts (Stage 0), Feasibility/Capability (Stage 1), Launch (Stage 2). It is the Ideas/Concepts (Stage 0) stage that is the area of concern of this action research study. There is a general awareness of certain problems and success factors during the front end. However, this stage remains 'fuzzy'; these activities of the early stage for fast consumer goods are the least explicit and a deeper understanding is needed through further research (Khurana & Rosenthal, 1998).The research explores 'Front End and New Product Development: An insider action research of FMCG products in a multi-national organization'. Such a research employs a constructivist approach to reveal the stages and the success factors at the international Front End, as perceived by Subject Matter Experts in international innovation, to develop a new International Product Concept Model and to apply it in a multi-national organization.

This study examines how novel packaging could be designed so that opening is easy for older people. Research into package openability is well established, possibly because of increases in the number of older people, whose ability to open packaging declines with ageing. However, research focusing on the design of indications that provide effective opening information for older people has not been extensive. Indications in this study were defined as packaging elements such as shapes, textures, symbols and diagrams. This study employed mixed methods research, based on a participatory design approach. Focus groups and in-depth interviews were used to provide rich insights into older peoples' design requirements for opening indications. Through focus groups, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to accurately elicit design requirements derived from participants' varied views on openability of novel packaging samples. These combined data informed the creation of design recommendations for packaging concerning sensory, cognitive and hand functions. In-depth interviews recorded older peoples' interactions with packaging. These provided data consequently used to define the relationship between two and three dimensional indications. Design recommendations concerning the use of combined two and three dimensional indications were also developed. All research results were synthesised to create an indication centred Design Framework Tool. This new, practical tool presents design problems and solutions associated with the different stages of package opening alongside the cognitive processes that occur at each stage. Designers can use this tool to diagnostically create novel packaging that is easy for older people to open

Customers of a steel manufacturing company now order a large number of low volume orders instead of a small number of high volume orders as they would have done just a few decades ago. The change in customer expectations has complicated production planning and scheduling within a steel manufacturing company. The aim of this research is to improve production planning and scheduling capability in steelmaking using one of the popular simulation techniques, called discrete event simulation. In this research it is observed that there are three major areas that need attention to improve production planning and scheduling capability. First, selection of optimal schedules and plans based on throughput, production time, stock size, and other production processing criteria. Next, incorporating cost into the criteria to select the schedules and plans will make the planning more cost effective and realistic at the same time. In addition, with the increased use of discrete event simulation modelling, there is a need to improve the model development efficiency and make the process less reliant on practitioners’ experience and capabilities, in order to improve the overall planning and scheduling capability. This thesis presents frameworks to address the three major areas for the capability improvement. This research adapts a systematic approach to validation. Theoretical, realisation, and empirical parts of the research were separately validated. Real life case studies were used for validation of each proposed framework. Discrete event simulation can improve the accuracy of production planning & scheduling and cost estimation for complex production systems. GA-based multi-objective optimisation can be successfully applied to optimisation of plans and schedules. Production planning and scheduling optimisation for some production areas provides a challenging problem to GAs. Cost estimation in the steel manufacturing company needs improvement because of the current lack of accurate costs of product families that affects quality of price management. The developed cost estimation technique is capable of providing more realistic cost for product families. The cost estimation technique would be useful for companies operating on volume-driven manufacturing processes rather than on unit-driven. Conceptual modelling needs to be improved in order to achievein model development efficiency and to make the process less reliant on practitioners’ experience and capabilities. A formal information collection process can aid conceptual modelling of production systems by further development of DES models for cost estimation.

This research presents an original contribution to knowledge illuminating how overlapping product trajectories and markets co-evolve, mutually influencing each other. By so doing, this study sheds light on how markets define, interrupt and divert product trajectories, with product trajectories holding together markets, connecting goods, agencies and practices enacted at different points in the trajectory. Putting forward an Exchange Networks model, this research extends the notion of market framing (Callon, 1999) to analyse overlapping markets, examining how market agencies compete to define exchange objects and enrol suppliers into their market actor-networks. This analysis importantly draws attention the shifting exchange networks connecting buyers, suppliers and exchange objects, revealing how agential practices shape and sustain overlapping markets. Analysing 'global value chains' as an example of a product trajectory, this research reports on the findings of an ethnographic study of the global coffee trajectory originating from the Good African Company market in Uganda - a Southern-led differentiated coffee market existing alongside the mainstream coffee market. The empirical data gathered captures the everyday practices of agencies shaping these two competing markets at the farmer - buyer segment of their coffee trajectories. This study therefore addresses an empirical gap in the Global Value Chain and commodity studies literature, providing a detailed analysis of how a Southern-led differentiated coffee market existing alongside the mainstream market is performed. In so doing, this research uncovers the particularities largely obscured in the structures, . systems and flows portrayed in Global Value Chain studies, addressing the reductionism assumed in the approach. An actor-network frame of reference developed in this thesis draws attention to the entrepreneurial capacity of semi-illiterate farmers and the unevenly distributed value along the coffee global value chain. These represent pertinent issues of interest to international development agencies, policy makers and NGOs in designing markets for, and channelling support to, developing countries.

The aim of this research was to close gaps in the literatures on new product development and on the marketing of services. This thesis presents the results of a survey into the development, launch and marketing of a large sample of typical new products introduced into the consumer financial services market within the United Kingdom. Previous research into new product success concentrates on product-related benefits (the revenues, sales, profit or market share achieved). However evaluating new products concentrating solely on product benefits ignores half of the potential benefits to the firm. The other benefits reflect a wider set of issues such as improved competitive advantage and creating a window of opportunity. The research identifies three underlying dimensions of performance for new financial services. The first was sales performance, which includes straightforward sales, sales growth and market share measures. Enhanced opportunities captures less tangible measures such as enhanced image and opening up windows of opportunity (these are termed company benefits). The third performance dimension was profitability, which shows that profit has both short-term and long-term aspects. A model of new product success is developed which embraces the concept of the augmented service offering (ASO). The ASO is the service core, its augmentation and the marketing which supports the service offering. The overall success of a new service is determined by the extent to which it achieves product-related benefits and company-related benefits. These benefits are a consequence of the ASO interacting with the marketplace. This thesis shows that the ASO, being the outcome of the new product development (NPD) process, is the key to success. Good practice in development on its own is insufficient to achieve success. The research demonstrate the complementary and mutually supporting role of the components of the ASO for new service performance. Whilst the constituents of the ASO are examined in detail, no one constituent is seen to be of overriding importance. Contrary to previous research into physical new products, the key success factor was not found to be product advantage. In new services this is only of secondary importance as financial service institutions face difficulties in differentiating their core product. However, one aspect of the basic service, namely product quality, was found to be important for performance. A further aspect of quality was also found to be important. This is the quality of the service delivery (the service experience), part of service augmentation. An additional element of service augmentation was found to be a key success factor: effective communications (ie. advertising and promotion creating awareness, creating customer understanding and creating a strong image). Aspects of the final part of the ASO, ie. marketing support, are also related to performance. Of particular importance are the people in the service process (ie. their skills and expertise), distribution strength (ie. the access of the sales force) and knowledge of the marketplace. A final part of the research identified the strategies employed by financial service companies to market specific products. The mix of distribution routes employed in the marketing of UK consumer financial products has been found to constitute four strategies. Three of which are multi-channel systems: balanced, arm's length and networks. The final strategy identified consists almost entirely of the use of intermediaries. It was found that no one strategy was clearly the best, but further analysis presented strong evidence to suggest that the adoption of multiple channels of distribution is associated with more success.

This thesis is about power and technology in organisations. It begins with a review of the literature on technology and technical change, and the author argues that most writers project a simplistic view of power in their texts. This leads them to assume that managers in organisations can use technology to further their own sectional interests. Managers can influence how the technology is developed, and operate it in a way which furthers their own objectives. The author reviews previous work on power, and concludes by asserting that the way power operates in organisations would undermine the assumptions held by writers on technical change. However, the theoreticians in the power literature hold that there is a very close association with power and knowledge, and that technology is a useful bond in this association. The author decided that the best way to study these ideas empirically was to carry out a grounded study of a change in technology in an organisation. The centrepiece of the work is a qualitative case study of British Rail. The organisation decided to implement local area networks, and the first piece of software on this system was designed to facilitate the entry of payroll information. The author spent a year interviewing a wide range of people connected with the change. The material obtained is described in some depth. Grounded theorising techniques were used to analyse the material. The author found that existing theory could not explain certain aspects of her data. For example, the way power operated in the organisation was very different to how the theory would predict. The technology was new in itself and new to the organisation. This meant that no one grouping had full knowledge of it. Managers from the part of the organisation which sponsored the project did not want to know about errors in the technology or organisational problems with the implementation. A feature which emerged was that managers in higher status parts of the organisation said that they could not interfere with lower status units. Local sites trying to operate the technology eventually devised local solutions to problems. As a result of these and other findings, the author concludes that technology is not a simple device to increase management power, but can lower it. Powerlessness can be used as a strategic device to get other people to do what they would not otherwise. In organisations not knowing something can be a sign of power.

Different types of research organisations exist in Colombia. Technological Development Centres - CDTs - are private institutions mainly created to perform applied R&D and technological services focused on solving their productive sectors' real necessities. They are becoming the most important type of organisation. This is due to different reasons: first, the global trend to reduce government funding for supporting R&D, which is especially true in Colombia, which has to face continuing and serious political and economical difficulties. A second reason is the movement at a worldwide level towards entering a stage of commercial science where knowledge production, diffusion and use are equally important. Therefore, the CDTs' condition as "applied and marketised knowledge producers" makes them an integral element of the process Colombia is currently facing to become a knowledge society. Ensuring the improvement of these centres' performance will contribute to the increase of productivity and competitiveness of the productive sectors they serve, and consequently of the nation as a whole. In this framework, the thesis mainly sets its contribution on the evaluation and monitoring of the centres' function, having as its main question: "How a methodology for structuring an evaluation and monitoring system of Colombian CDTs that supports the improvement of their performance, should be developed, such that features and relationships between them are taken into account". The research strategy combines inductive and deductive strategies using qualitative and quantitative data, collected through semi-structured interviews and documentation analysis provided by Co1ciencias, the primary Government agency for science and technology policy, as well as questionnaires applied to CDTs' directors and / or assistants, policy makers, academics and companies having a relationship with the centres. From this study, it is possible to learn that public and private support to the centres' activities is needed to avoid the contradiction or challenge they are currently facing, because according to Colciencias they should be "public knowledge producers" contributing to the improvement of the country's productivity and competitiveness,' but they must simultaneously be selfsustainable. There is a need to redefine innovation policies to recognise and focus on SMEs as the most representative group of the Colombian productive sector and hence the main potential users of the centres' services. A reclassification of the centres in CDTs and CGTs is required to make clear mission and services they should offer in accordance with their capacities and strategic priorities. On this basis, the development of each centre's performance evaluation and monitoring procedure in the framework of a management system previously defined by each of them, to ensure the fulfilment of their mission as well as the right use of their resources, is imperative.

This thesis presents an analysis of New Product Development (NPD) practices and strategies in several large technology based companies. It examines the project appraisal systems, NPD strategies and organisational arrangements of 31 companies, and then examines a selection of NPD projects within five of those companies in detail. The NPD projects were examined at the time of their initial proposal, to determine the nature of the projects being considered, in terms of how radical or incremental they were to the company, i.e. how much their applications and requirements differed from current company experience and capabilities. The same projects were then examined again, where possible at the stage of their final acceptance or rejection, to determine to what extent their requirements had been met, and how their appraisal, development and exploitation methods varied from the stated practices and policies of the company. Also the nature of the solutions used to undertake and exploit the NPD projects were examined, particularly where new capabilities were required, and the company had to decide whether to develop them in-house, or acquire them from external sources, perhaps by undertaking some form of collaboration. Together, all the data collected provides an insight into how different types of projects (Radical I Incremental) performed within different appraisal and development systems, and to what extent the acceptance or rejection of projects was related to their fit within the organisation's strategic goals, or to other factors such as the appraisal systems and the involvement of external parties. The tools developed for the Radical/Incremental classification of projects, and the information on the appropriateness of various appraisal and development regimes and exploitation options, can be used to enhance the effectiveness of the NPD process. If applied, they have the potential to deliver significant time and cost savings, by means of the establishment of a specifically focused appraisal and development system for each project, based on its early Radical/Incremental classification, and the corresponding determination of the nature and sources of the proposal's requirements. This study also provides new analysis and diagnostic tools for NPD processes, which enhance the ability to investigate and monitor such activities for both operational and academic purposes.

The proven benefits that acquired from implementing Lean Manufacturing (LM) have led a sharp increase in the number of companies which adopt LM into their operations. Yet, not all the attempts have been successful due to the complex nature of Lean philosophies, tools and implementation process. It is not an exaggeration to say that there are a lot of challenges ahead for any manufacturing companies in order to gain and sustain beneficial LM operations. Previous research has mostly focused on the technical side of Lean tools such as how to apply and use them rather than considering what the most effective way to inherit into operations and workers from the training perspective. The issues of failures in gaining expected benefit from implementing LM are due to lack of a coherent and comprehensive workforce training framework. This research aims to examine the current LM state in the United Kingdom by focusing on the training related issues. The challenges that arise during the examination have led to develop a new training model WOTMLM (Workforce Training Model for LM). During the development stage, the training related information collected from Japan-based manufacturing companies was taken into account. The proposal of this model contributes to the manufacturing companies in providing a strategic guidance to organise the most suitable training programme. The model was successfully applied in two British manufacturing companies in order to validate its capability using direct observation, interviews, questionnaire and demonstration. To further demonstrate the viability of the model, an expert mathematical model was also introduced as a supportive function of the training model. To conclude the abstract of this thesis, original contributions to the knowledge of this thesis are the WOTMLM which aids the manufacturing companies in implementing Lean Manufacturing successfully and the expert mathematical system which supports to organise a low cost training programme. WOTMLM leads the manufacturing companies to organise a training programme systematically by providing a step by step guidance and carrying out an evaluation process after each step. Moreover, WOTMLM has a supportive expert mathematical model which chooses the most suitable trainee based on the several parameters in order to achieve a cost effective training. Manufacturing companies which employ those developed concepts will be able to enjoy the full benefit of Lean Manufacturing. Moreover, the flexibility of the WOTMLM enables to enhance the contributions to any sector or size of manufacturing companies.