This dissertation investigates causal factors that lead to implementing a top-down approach to platform product design as well as performance outcomes from such a design. A top-down approach to platform product design requires intentional planning of a new platform-based product design during the new product development process, incorporating a level of modularity into the new design, and planning derivative products based on common subsystems and interfaces. A thorough review of literature was used to build a theory of platform product design founded on risks and benefits. Benefits are that platform design can drive revenue, introduce cost and time efficiencies, lead to more reliable products and offer managerial benefits in the form of adjacencies. Risks include increased costs and time to market for the first product, reduced revenue due to commonality, sub-optimal product design, and increased management complexity during the NPD process. A conceptual model was then developed encompassing antecedents, contributing factors, and market performance measures to implementing a top-down approach to new platform product design. The model was empirically tested in the context of U.S. manufacturing firms using data collected from 249 manufacturing product design managers. Respondents included managers from B2B firms and B2C firms as well as small and large firms. In order to test the model, a new continuous multidimensional measurement scale of top-down platform product design was developed. Results showed that market turbulence, technological turbulence, a product that is new to the market and competitive strategies of differentiation and design for supportability are positively related to platform design. Firm type - B2B versus B2C - and firm size - large firms versus small firms - was found to moderate this relationship. Regarding firm type, products that are new to the market are positively related to platform design for B2C firms, not B2B firms, while a competitive strategy of design for supportability is positively related to platform design for B2B firms, not B2C firms. Regarding firm size, a competitive strategy of design for supportability is positively related to platform design for large firms, not small firms. These findings suggest that an important predictor of top-down platform design is risk or uncertainty. Results also showed that top-down platform product design is positively related to both short term and long term market performance although this relationship is significantly greater for long term market performance. In the short-term, performance as measured by sales and market share was greater than performance as measured by profits. In the long-term, performance measured by sales and profits was greater than performance measured by market share. Organizational support in the form of management buy-in and cross-functional integration partially mediates the relationship between platform design and long term market performance. Finally, strategic flexibility was found to have an inverse relationship with top-down platform down. Firms lacking strategic flexibility were more likely to pursue a top-down platform design. This is in line with findings that suggest top-down platform design is undertaken when uncertainty is high and strategic flexibility is an advantage These findings contradict conventional wisdom in new product development literature and offer a better understanding of why platform design is important in a way that has not been previously defined. / Business Administration/Marketing

Manufacturing globalization and sustainable development compel production enterprises to continuously seek improvements in their products performance, customization, environmental friendliness, cost, and delivery time. The challenges of this competition cannot be completely addressed through improving production processes because some issues can only be solved through more innovative design. This thesis investigates a new design paradigm called Design for Adaptability or Adaptable Design (AD) to address some of these challenges. The purpose of AD is to extend the utility of designs and products. An adaptable design allows manufacturers to quickly develop new and upgraded models or customized products through adapting existing designs with proven quality and costs. An adaptable product can be utilized under varying service requirements thus prevents premature product replacement. Design adaptability and product adaptability provide economical and environmental benefits of AD. <p> To make a product adaptable, its adaptability must be built-in during the design stage. Methods of design for predetermined adaptations are categorized as Specific AD; these methods design products for versatility, upgrading, variety, and customization. Several of these methods such as modular/platform design and design for upgrading have been studied for mechanical design. In the absence of predetermined adaptations, AD aims to increase the general adaptability of products. General AD involves fundamental research in design theory and methodology in order to develop practical design methods and guidelines. This thesis introduces several original concepts and proposes the subordination of a system to a rational functional structure as an approach for increasing general adaptability. Such a system would consist of a hierarchical assembly of autonomous functional modules, emulating the adaptable architecture of a rational functional structure. Methods and guidelines are proposed for making the design of mechanical systems closer to this ideal architecture. <p> Accordingly, the thesis proposes a methodology for AD in which specific AD is performed first to take advantage of available forecast information, and then general AD is performed in order to increase adaptability to unforeseen changes. Also, a measure has been defined for the assessment of adaptability. The application of this methodology has been demonstrated through several conceptual design examples.

Manufacturing globalization and sustainable development compel production enterprises to continuously seek improvements in their products performance, customization, environmental friendliness, cost, and delivery time. The challenges of this competition cannot be completely addressed through improving production processes because some issues can only be solved through more innovative design. This thesis investigates a new design paradigm called Design for Adaptability or Adaptable Design (AD) to address some of these challenges. The purpose of AD is to extend the utility of designs and products. An adaptable design allows manufacturers to quickly develop new and upgraded models or customized products through adapting existing designs with proven quality and costs. An adaptable product can be utilized under varying service requirements thus prevents premature product replacement. Design adaptability and product adaptability provide economical and environmental benefits of AD. <p> To make a product adaptable, its adaptability must be built-in during the design stage. Methods of design for predetermined adaptations are categorized as Specific AD; these methods design products for versatility, upgrading, variety, and customization. Several of these methods such as modular/platform design and design for upgrading have been studied for mechanical design. In the absence of predetermined adaptations, AD aims to increase the general adaptability of products. General AD involves fundamental research in design theory and methodology in order to develop practical design methods and guidelines. This thesis introduces several original concepts and proposes the subordination of a system to a rational functional structure as an approach for increasing general adaptability. Such a system would consist of a hierarchical assembly of autonomous functional modules, emulating the adaptable architecture of a rational functional structure. Methods and guidelines are proposed for making the design of mechanical systems closer to this ideal architecture. <p> Accordingly, the thesis proposes a methodology for AD in which specific AD is performed first to take advantage of available forecast information, and then general AD is performed in order to increase adaptability to unforeseen changes. Also, a measure has been defined for the assessment of adaptability. The application of this methodology has been demonstrated through several conceptual design examples.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) holds great potential for fostering innovation across various industries. This study explores the role of boundary resources (BR) in catalyzing this potential, specifically focusing on the experiences and challenges faced by data scientists within IIoT platforms. In a qualitative research approach, semi- structured interviews were conducted with eight data scientists that uncovered how specific BR related to metadata management, tool integration, business models, and API design might impact their work and the innovative environment. The analysis reveals that these BR are essential in shaping the effectiveness of IIoT platforms but often fall short in meeting the unique needs of data scientists, thereby inhibiting innovation. The findings suggest that an actor-centric redesign of BR, emphasizing the specialized workflows and technical demands of data scientists, might enhance the flexibility and functionality of IIoT platforms. Platform owners are encouraged to adopt adaptable and dynamic BR designs to leverage data scientists' diverse capabilities and insights, especially in business-to-business (B2B) environments.

摘要 　　觀光旅遊是現今十分興盛的休閒活動，根據 2010 至 2012 年交通部觀光局統計資料顯示，國人國內旅遊以非旅行社承辦平均高達約 88%，因此如何有效規劃行程內容及安排各景點間的交通路線，就成為旅遊前的重要準備工作。 　　檢視目前旅遊規劃的數位服務平台並無法真正解決旅遊需求。故本研究設計與建置一套旅遊支援平台，首先藉由訪談，了解使用者需求，歸納出平台設計重點，分析系統的使用流程，再設計功能模組化與操作介面，最後建置平台並進行原型評估。本平台以雲端資料庫為基礎，無縫結合網站與行動應用兩端的資訊流。使用者在行前利用網站規劃行程內容，完成後上傳至雲端資料庫，網站端內容會自動同步於行動應用端，並以適合行動應用的界面呈現。使用者之行程安排因此更便利與彈性，在行動中亦能利隨時以手機查看行程，並依當地情況修改行程、即時安排交通路徑，使得旅遊行程計畫可以依實際的變化機動調適。而更新後的行程亦同步儲存於雲端。 　　本研究未來方向可以往更多的服務串流發展，如景點的多媒體內容、社群結合、智慧邏輯排程或外部資訊連結等等。隨著未來資訊技術的提升，將為系統平台帶來更多可能性、讓整體服務擁有更佳的整合性，提供使用者更好的體驗。 / Nowadays, touring is a popular leisure activity. According to statistics from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, people arranged their own domestic travels as high as 88%. Because backpacking can be economical and more flexible, many young people tend to travel by themselves. Therefore travel planning has become the most important preparation work. How to plan an effective schedule and how to arrange the routes between attractive points are the tasks that backpackers often need to face. However there are few information services for the needs currently. The thesis designed and implemented a travelling support platform. First, the research identified design key elements by interviewing users and analyzing travelling behaviors. Second, the research mapped the touring process into functional models. Finally, we built and tested the platform prototype. This platform is Cloud-based and seamlessly integrates both website and mobile application to achieve the information service. Users use the website to schedule their trips and upload the schedules to the cloud database. Then the user can access the same schedule made at website on the mobile APP synchronously. They can check their schedule while they are traveling on the mobile phones. In addition, they can edit the schedule and rearrange new traffic routes real-time to adjust to the local circumstances. The further developments of the platform will include more integrated services, such as multimedia contents, social network, and intelligent logic scheduling. With the evolution of the technology in the future, the platform will provide better user experience.

Digital communication through communication platforms has increased and changed significantly during the last decade and recently not least because of the corona pandemic, which has shifted many face-to-face activities to the internet (Obringer R. , et al., 2021). This paper firstly contains a quantitative survey study that investigates human behaviour and their experience on digital communication platforms with a focus on media transfer of photos and videos. Afterwards, the data sizes of various media after transfers through diverse communication platforms are explored in an experiment. This is followed by the development of a prototype in which sustainable design is implemented and aim to nudge the user to more sustainable-friendly digital behaviour relating data transfers of media and the settings of a communication platform. Finally, the prototype undergoes usability testing through which the user experience and positive environmental impact is evaluated. The findings reveal that the implementation of sustainability-focused nudges, features and design within a communication platform can lead users to more sustainable decisions in one or more areas of the platform and thus improve its environmental footprint.

Syfte: Det övergripande syftet med uppsatsen är att förstå hur transaktionsplattformar ska lyckas i tidiga stadier. Detta genom att förstå hur en transkansaktionsplattform ska utformas för att kunna attrahera många användare.  Metod: Denna studie har använt en kvalitativ forskningsansats där intervjuerna genomfördes i tre faser. I studien genomfördes intervjuer med 24 svenska bolag och organisationer verksamma i energibranschen. Studien intervjuade två olika användargrupper vilket var beställare och utförare. Utöver det genomfördes även intervjuer med branschkunniga aktörer.  Resultat: Resultatavsnittet är indelat i två delar där första delen handlar om att skapa förståelse för sju faktorer som påverkar intentionen för potentiella användare att adoptera en transaktionsplattform. Här presenteras på vilket sätt dessa faktorer påverkar adoptionsbeslutet samt vilka handlingar som plattformsägaren kan vidta för att öka deras intention att adoptera. I andra delen av resultatavsnittet presenteras ett ramverk som plattformsägaren kan använda i utformningsstadiet. Ramverket handlar om att identifiera intressanta användargrupper samt adressera faktorer som påverkar adoptionsbeslutet.  Teoretiskt och praktiskt bidrag: Befintlig litteratur har sällan i samma studie inkluderat flera faser av plattformars livscykel, utan enbart fokuserat på en fas åt gången. Denna studie bidrar teoretiskt genom att undersöka hur utformningsfasen påverkar adoptionsfasen för transaktionsplattformar. Dessutom bidrar denna studie till litteraturen genom att undersöka tidiga stadier för transaktionsplattformar. Studien fokuserar på utformningsfasen, vilket sällan undersökts i befintlig litteratur. Studien bidrar även praktiskt genom att presentera ett ramverk som kan hjälpa chefer eller entreprenörer vid utformningen av en ny transaktionsplattform. Användning av ramverket kan underlätta hanteringen av höna-och-ägg-problemet som nya transaktionsplattformar alltid möts av.  Begränsningar och framtida forskning: Det finns framför allt två begränsningar med denna studie, vilket öppnar upp för framtida studier. Den första är att den undersökta intervjugruppen är relativt snäv vilket kan leda till branschspecifika resultat. Framtida studier kan därmed undersöka andra branscher och jämföra mot denna studies resultat för att öka generaliserbarheten. Den andra begränsningen är att denna studie enbart intervjuat potentiella användare av transaktionsplattformar och inte nuvarande användare – det vill säga adoptörer. Därmed var intervjuundersökning relativt hypotetisk och mycket fokus lades på vad intervjuobjekten kunde tänka sig. Framtida studier kan därmed även intervjua nuvarande användare av en transaktionsplattform för att vidareutveckla resultatet. / Purpose: The main purpose of the thesis is to understand how transaction platforms can become successful in early phases. This will be achieved by understanding how a transaction platform should be designed in order to attract many users to the platform. Method: This study had a qualitative research approach, and the interviews were performed in three phases. Interviews were made with 24 companies and organizations within the energy industry. Two different user groups were interviews, which was buyers and sellers. Besides that, people with high knowledge of the industry were interviewed. Result: The result section is divided in two parts, where the first part intends to create knowledge about seven factors that affects the intention for potential users to adopt a transaction platform. It is described in what way these factors affect the adoption decision and which action the platform owner can take to increase the intention to adopt. In the second part of the result section, a framework is presented that platform owners can use in the design phase. The framework is about identifying interesting user groups and addressing factors that affects the adoption decision. Practical and theoretical contribution: Existing literature has rarely focused on including several phases of the platform's life cycle. Previous studies has therefore only focused on one phase at a time. This study contributes to the literature by investigating how the design phase affects the adoption phase for transaction platforms. Additionally, this study contributes to the literature by investigating the early phase of a platform, which is rare to find in the existing literature. The study contributes practically by providing a framework that can help decision-makers and entrepreneurs to design a new transactional platform. Using the framework can help managers to cope the chicken-and-egg dilemma that new platforms often face.  Limitations and future studies: This study has two limitations that opens for future studies. Firstly, our interview group is relatively narrowed, which can lead to industry-specific findings. Future studies can therefore investigate other industries to compare those findings with this study to identify more general findings. The second limitation is that this study has exclusively done interviews with potential users. Therefore, the interview study was relatively hypothetical, and a lot of focus was on what the interviewees could imagine. Future studies can therefore do interviews with users of an existing transaction platform to develop our framework more.

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This thesis explores the potential for integrating established e-commerce success factors (ECSF) into service-oriented e-business (SOEB). It examines whether traditional e-commerce principles can be adapted to SOEB practices. The research follows a dual-path approach, analyzing the SOEB literature and comparing empirical data from SOEB practices with this literature, as well as conducting a parallel comparative analysis of ECSF to determine which factors are relevant in the context of SOEB. Our findings reveal that while ECSF cannot be directly replicated in SOEB due to different operational contexts, many ECSF are naturally aligned with SOEB domain needs, but require contextual adaptation. Key success factors such as customer relationship management &amp; customer support, personalized service delivery, platform usability, and robust security measures are important for both domains. The study also highlights the growing importance of servitization and social sustainability in SOEB, reflecting a shift in consumer values toward more socially responsible business practices. A theoretical model was developed to illustrate the transferability of ECSF to SOEB. This model distinguishes foundational factors already integrated to SOEB and identifies new factors for future exploration. It serves as a practical framework for industry practitioners seeking to extend SOEB operations through the use of e-commerce strategies. The research contributes to the academic discussion by bridging the unexplored gap between e-commerce and SOEB literature and presents an approach to incorporate ECSF to SOEB contexts. Future research directions include empirically testing the theoretical model, exploring additional e-commerce success factors, and investigating the role of emerging technologies and social sustainability in SOEB.

Making of an analysis of the assembly process. Presentation of safe and efficient assembly with the help of platforms or scaffolding for all types of machines according to the working width. Choosing the most suitable alternative of machine assembly. Suggestion about the assembly workstation's placement in a hall. Storage and logistics. Advantages of the chosen solution. Summary of the conclusions.