Abstract The workload of Verification and Validation (V&V) has increased constantly in the high technology industries. The changes in the business environment, with fast time-to-market and demands to decrease research and development costs, have increased the importance of efficient product creation process, including V&V. The significance of the V&V related know-how and testing is increasing in the high tech business environment. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector have pressures for improving product development process and verification and validation activities. The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation from product development process perspective. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current challenges and success factors, V&V maturity in different NPD phases, benchmarking automotive sector, and shifting the emphasis of NPD efforts. This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a visible need to shift the emphasis of V&V activities to early NPD. These activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. There is a need for companies to understand the V&V maturity in different NPD phases and develop activities based on this understanding. Verification and validation activities must be seen as an integral element for successful NPD. Benchmarking other sectors may enable identifying development potential for NPD process. The automotive sector being a mature sector, has developed practices for successfully handling requirements during NPD. The role of V&V is different in different NPD phases. Set-based type V&V can provide required understanding during early product development. In addition, developing parallel technological alternatives and platforms during early NPD also support shifting the emphasis towards earlier development phases.

Abstract The main motive for this research arises from the fact that the research has been scarce on verification and validation (V&V) activities from the management viewpoint, even though V&V has been covered from the technical viewpoint. There was a clear need for studying the management aspects due to the development of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and increased significance of V&V activities. ICT has developed into a turbulent, high clock-speed sector and the importance of V&V activities has increased significantly. As a consequence, companies in the ICT sector require ideas for improving their verification and validation activities from the product development management viewpoint. This study approaches the above mentioned goal from four perspectives: current V&V management challenges, organisational and V&V maturities, benchmarking another sector, and uncertainty during new product development (NPD). This dissertation is qualitative in nature and is based on interviewing experienced industrial managers, reflecting their views against scientific literature. The researcher has analysed the obtained material and made conclusions. The main implications of this doctoral dissertation can be concluded as a need to overcome the current tendency to organise through functional silos, and low maturity of V&V activities. Verification and validation activities should be viewed and managed over the entire NPD process. This requires new means for cross-functional integration. The maturity of the overall management system needs to be adequate to enable higher efficiency and effectiveness of V&V activities. There are pressures to shift the emphasis of V&V to early NPD and simultaneously delay decision-making in NPD projects to a stage where enough information is available. Understanding enhancing V&V methods are a potential way to advance towards these goals.

With increasing demands from customers, companies face the challenges of shortening the new product development (NPD) period, reducing development cost and increasing development efficiency. High quality and efficiency of NPD can increase the chance for companies to be competitive on the market. Forming up cross-functional teams becomes a popular way of maximizing the knowledge then increase the development quality and efficiency. However, it is challenging to integrate the resources from different functions and even more challenging when the resources are from different countries. To overcome the integration challenges can increase the efficiency of NPD projects therefore finally win global market shares. This study’s purpose is to identify and analyze integration challenges experienced by a verification team involved in global NPD and to suggest how those challenges can be managed by answering two research questions: 1) What are the integration challenges with the current work process encountered by the global verification team? 2) How can the integration challenges be met in the improved work process? The case study is used as the research method in order to get deep insight of the challenges that a global verification team faces. VSM Group AB, an international leading sewing company is selected as the case company.  The case team, a global verification team locates both in Sweden and China, plays the role of verification work within NPD process. The case team verifies the design and new products in the process.  Through interviews, observation and literature reviews, the challenges in this global verification team are identified. It is found that the case team needs to overcome language barriers, culture difference, task planning and formalization and standardization on work performance during integration. Based on the investigations, a set of solutions are proposed in the end to meet the challenges. These solutions are an improved work process, work performance system, training program and uniformed documentation. These proposals are inspired by the integration mechanisms such as formalization and standardization, special reports etc and then fit them into the case team context. By simulation and evaluation the solutions within the global verification team, the feedback on the proposals helped for improvement. This case study at VSM is an empirical example of implementation of integration mechanisms into a real life context.

In today’s constantly changing environment globalization offers opportunities as well as threats to manufacturing companies. One trend in industry is that to meet customer demands and global competition, manufacturing companies need to frequently introduce new products to the market at the right time and cost. Another trend is that manufacturing companies relocate their production sites abroad. Therefore, in this thesis the context is global development projects, which includes both new product development and production relocation projects. The global dimension implies that team members are located in different countries. Integration between team members, which in this thesis refers to interaction processes involving information exchange on the one hand and collaboration or cooperation on the other, is therefore a challenge. Even if much research exists with regard to integration, integration across national borders in global development projects has not been addressed to a greater extent. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to expand the analysis of integration in global development projects in order to gain insights regarding the use of different integration mechanisms. The thesis specifically addresses the influence of national cultural and linguistic differences on integration as well as the use of various integration mechanisms. The results originate from one longitudinal case study of a global new product development project and two retrospective case studies including global new product development and production relocation projects. In general, it is concluded that in global development projects national cultural and linguistic differences amplify integration difficulties among project team members who belong to different functions. The comparison of the three global development projects indicated that some of the integration mechanisms worked and were used to integrate team members from different functions, while others did not work as intended. Therefore, this thesis argues that there is a need for a diverse set of integration mechanisms that depend on the context of a global development project and specifically on national cultural and linguistic differences.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the standardization of a New Product Development (NPD) process affects creativity and efficiency. The research was conducted on a case company through several interviews with employees connected to the process with various experience within the company. Standardization and creativity have in the past been considered to be mutually exclusive. However, recent research shows a connection between them and suggests that they could complement each other. This thesis is built upon a framework of six factors affecting creativity in NPD and has further explored how these are connected to efficiency as well. The research concludes that creativity and efficiency in NPD can work in harmony, complementing and supporting each other by focusing on the content rather than the process.

The organization I work in has 13 subsidiary businesses operating in the branded footwear and apparel industry. The industry currently faces significant macroeconomic and industry challenges. One of our biggest challenges is how to avoid excessive and wasteful new product development whilst still building an attractive range of products for the customer. So the focus of my research is on the management control and governance of the New Product Development (NPD) process to solve a pressing business problem. However, there is a gap in the literature. Many authors have claimed that our knowledge of the governance of NPD processes is incomplete and there is a dearth of actual studies in this area. My literature review looked at management control and in particular at the enduring problem of the need to generate control without stifling creativity. The literature led me to focus on the use of feedforward controls to influence NPD management teams to improve portfolio value and strategic alignment whilst simultaneously encouraging NPD experimentation. During this research I developed the concept of Feedforward Anticipatory Control (FAC), which encompasses the combination of feedforward control and double-loop learning. From this start my research question became “How does the use of FAC influence NPD management teams to improve portfolio value and strategic alignment?” From theory and my initial case study research I developed, tested and refined a tool for ascertaining the level of FAC sophistication in use by NPD teams in their development process. The tool was then used in action research interventions to help the teams develop their sophistication in the use of FAC. The tool was found to be useable, useful and have value. The action research case studies were embedded in a case study protocol to ensure the rigour of my research. This involved developing a framework to investigate the consequences of my interventions, in terms of both hard performance metrics and softer team perceptions. The contribution is in the use of management controls in NPD. The findings show that different levels of FAC sophistication can be applied in NPD and that the use of higher levels of FAC influences NPD teams to improve portfolio value and strategic alignment. The contribution to practice is an intervention “toolkit” that can influence NPD teams to develop higher levels of FAC sophistication and generate improvements in NPD portfolio performance.

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate factors which influences product launch strategies.

Este trabalho trata dos métodos de desenvolvimento de novos produtos e serviços em startups digitais. Seu objetivo é explorar a prática atual das startups digitais, buscando um melhor entendimento de quais processos e práticas são utilizados, como eles são escolhidos e qual a percepção das startups sobre a adequação destes métodos no desenvolvimento de seus produtos e serviços. Para atingir este objetivo foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa, através de entrevistas em profundidade. O roteiro de entrevista foi criado a partir do estudo de processos clássicos, como o Stage-gate, e de processos emergentes, como o Lean Startup e o Design Thinking. Para este trabalho foram entrevistadas 10 startups e as entrevistas foram analisadas quanto ao seu conteúdo, através da análise temática. A análise é apresentada a partir de três grandes temas: processos e práticas em uso; influências e critérios para seleção de processos e práticas; e a percepção dos entrevistados sobre a adequação destes processos e práticas. Como resultados, identificou-se que as startups não seguem nenhum processo específico de forma completa, mas criam um método de trabalho a partir da adaptação de diversas influências, sendo que o processo de maior influência é o Lean Startup. O desenvolvimento dos produtos segue uma abordagem iterativa, adaptativa e centrada no usuário. O método de trabalho é considerado adequado e diretamente vinculado aos resultados, sendo que o desenvolvimento iterativo e centrado no usuário é considerado necessário para o tipo de negócio de uma startup digital. / This study is concerned with the methods for New Product and Services Development in digital startups. Its purpose is to explore current practice of digital startups to develop a better understanding of what processes and practices are used, how they are chosen and how startups perceive the suitability of these methods. To achieve this goal, a qualitative research was carried out, through in-depth interviews supported by a semi-structured interview guide. The guide was based on the study of classic processes, such as the Stage-gate, and emerging processes, such as Lean Startup and Design Thinking. Ten startups were interviewed. The results of the interviews were analysed for their content, using thematic analysis approach. The final analysis is based on three main themes: processes and practices in use, influences and criteria for process and practice selection, and interviewees' perception of the adequacy of processes and practices. It was identified that the startups do not adopt any specific process completely, but rather create a work method from the adaptation of several influences. The most influential process is Lean Startup. The work processes follow an iterative, adaptive and user-centric approach. The work method is considered adequate and directly linked to the results, and the user-centered and iterative development is considered necessary for the context of a digital startup.

<p>The world is a very competitive place, every day companies from all over the globe try to be on the edge of their fields in order to keep a good distance from competitors. They have found in the new product development process or NPD the leverage they needed to build up that differentiation required to get ahead over competitors. When looking inside the NPD we decided to focus on a very critical and interesting stage, the business analysis process. The purpose sought with our research is to provide a better understanding of how small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) carry out their business analysis stage in the process of new product development (NPD), this purpose was first obtained by stating a main problem and to facilitate the answer to this main problem we proposed two research questions that were later used to review all of the related literature, which resulted in a conceptual framework 2employed to guide this study’s data collection. We decided to use the inductive approach and the use of primary data collected with the help of interviews with companies representing SMEs using a qualitative case study approach through all interviews. It is important to mention that the interviews were also designed with the help of the research questions.</p><p>The results allowed us to develop a model that shows how the business analysis process looks like in the companies studied as well as to highlight the most relevant factors for the two companies studied when performing the business analysis. Finally the research let us establish some suggestions for future researches regarding the business analysis process such as the differences between small and medium enterprises and larger firms, and the cross-functional activities involved in a business analysis process in larger firms.</p>