Lic.-avh. Luleå : Luleå tekniska univ., 2005.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2009. / Härtill 3 uppsatser.

The broad objective of this thesis is to extend our understanding of radical new product development (NPD) beyond degree of customer orientation (CO) by assessing the role and influence of both customers and other external influencers (OEIs). While a number of studies have investigated the relationship between CO and NPD outcomes, such studies typically focus on incremental NPD. The role of customers is also typically investigated using numerical scales to understand degree of CO, and fails to consider the important implementation issues of which, when and how customers are involved through the NPD process. In addition to customers, other external influencers (OEIs) such as investors, suppliers, distributors, competitors, universities and advisors are also increasingly involved in radical NPD, but the roles and actual influence of these different groups is unclear. To address these gaps in the literature this thesis adopts a network approach to investigate the role of customers and OEIs in the development of six radical new products. Six retrospective case studies are conducted, all involving the development of radical ICT products targeted at industrial markets. To provide further insight, three of these cases involve successful new products while the remaining three involve unsuccessful products. Analysis of case data involves qualitative and quantitative network analysis as well as thematic analysis of interview transcripts. Clear differences are found between the ways in which the successful and unsuccessful cases involve customers and OEIs. For example, firms developing successful products focus on existing customers with whom they have strong previous relationships, while developers of unsuccessful products do not. Furthermore, the successful cases all involve customers actively as co-developers of the product, while none of the unsuccessful cases take this approach. These findings are presented in detail and discussed in relation to the existing literature. A set of empirically-based propositions are outlined as a foundation for future research.

Thesis (Msc Food Sc (Food Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Carob (Ceratonia silliqua) is an evergreen, drought resistant tree of Mediterranean origin. Popularly known as St John’s bread, the carob pod has a long history of use in food (over 4 000 years). Carob has a good nutritional value, a long shelf-life (2-3 years) and it is relatively cheap. Due to its high sugar content, carob is naturally sweet. It also has a nutty chocolate-like flavour, but unlike chocolate or cocoa, carob does not contain any caffeine, thiobromine or oxalic acid. In addition, carob is normally regarded as a healthy food because of its low fat content (0.2 – 2.3%). Carob trees are also found in South Africa, especially in the Western Cape Province. Locally, carob trees have been used mainly ornamentally or as a source of animal fodder, with minimal use of the pods as a nutritious food source. Knowledge of the nutritional composition and the overall nutritional potential of locally (South African) grown carob cultivars is also limited. Carob could potentially be used as an alternative food source in South Africa as currently, most of this nutritious product goes to waste each year. In this study, the feasibility of using carob pods as an alternative source of food in South Africa was investigated. This was done by firstly, analysing the cultivars for proximate composition (moisture, carbohydrates, sugars, dietary fibre, protein, polyphenols, fat and ash) as well as for amino acids, fatty acids and minerals, in order to determine and compare their nutritional contents. Five cultivars (Tylliria, SFax, Aaronsohn, Santa Fe and an “Unknown” cultivar) were examined. The average proximate composition of raw carob pods was 8.17 – 9.56% moisture, 89.57 – 91.12% carbohydrates, 40.69 – 54.74% total sugars (33.70 – 45.09% sucrose, 1.79 – 4.95% glucose and 1.80 – 5.19% fructose), 29.88 – 36.07% dietary fibre, 3.07 – 4.42% protein, 2.58 – 3.08% polyphenols, 0.45 – 0.86% fat and 2.13 – 2.69% ash. Seven essential amino acids were present in all the cultivars, except for methionine which was not detected in the Single unknown cultivar. This study has shown that all the cultivars had good long-chain fatty acid (LCFA) proportions in terms of the saturated to polyunsaturated fatty acid (SFA: PUFA) and n-6 to n-3 ratios. The short-chain fatty acid content of the cultivars was low. All nine minerals (calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, sodium, manganese, iron, copper and zinc) analysed for in this study were detected in all five carob cultivars and all cultivars were very low in sodium. The impact of various roasting times (45, 60 and 75 min) at 150ºC, on the temperature sensitive components such as sugars, protein and fat, was also examined. Roasting had no significant (P>0.05) effect on the fat content. Although roasting significantly (P<0.05) reduced the sugar and protein content from 54.74 to 32.53% and 3.59 to 3.18%, respectively, levels in both raw and roasted carob still represented a potentially nutritious food source and alternative to cocoa. A variety of food products targeted at the various food market sectors were developed with carob as an ingredient. The formulations for five new food products (bread, porridge, breakfast cereal, mousse and milk-based drink) were developed where carob had successfully been incorporated as an ingredient. Microbiological and consumer sensory analyses carried out showed that all products developed were safe and acceptable. The findings of this study provide useful scientific evidence towards the fact that carob could potentially be used as an alternative food source in South Africa.

Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / The aim of this research was to investigate new product development practices for application to small businesses. Although larger companies, in general, have well-established practices from which smaller companies can benefit, product development in smaller businesses tends to be less formalised and less well described. Hence, this research is aimed at breaching this gap and addressing the need of the small business environment. The first few chapters of the study describe the investigation of product development in its general form. This provides an overview of what product development and the execution of the process in particular entails. Control mechanisms that are used to counter and manage unwanted behaviours that may occur during the process are also discussed. A generic product development process is then discussed in detail, based on research carried out on small- and medium-sized enterprises. The initial literature discussion in the first few chapters thus highlights the need to control and manage product development, and shows where pitfalls occur that could be detrimental to product success. This is followed by an investigation to establish the extent to which companies realise the impact the development process could have on product success. As the focus of this study revolves around small businesses that are growing, the use of phase review criteria as it pertains to companies with well-established product development practices was investigated, together with the role of product development in other business activities. The most important aim of this study was to develop a new product development framework that could be used in the small business environment. Seven key best practices were eventually identified, which are discussed in turn, together with their key underlying and component principles. The results are summarised and used to draw up the framework. The framework is summarised in a way that provides concise detail, which makes it useful even without any accompanying information. The last part of the study was aimed at validating the results of the framework. This was done by means of a survey and one-on-one interviews with a group of carefully selected participants who were involved in small businesses developments. The participants completed a questionnaire indicating the relevance of the framework for their enterprises. Useful information was obtained through this feedback and this yielded positive results. Having validated the framework for application in the small business environment, the thesis ends with the proposals for improving the framework.

Submitted by FLAVIO YOSHIKAZU YUKITA null (fyukita@ig.com.br) on 2017-12-18T01:04:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Flávio Y Yukita.pdf: 4681342 bytes, checksum: d4cc7096fcb5b77eaadcf13d564a0748 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamella Benevides Gonçalves null (pamella@feg.unesp.br) on 2017-12-18T12:23:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 yukita_fy_dr_guara.pdf: 4681342 bytes, checksum: d4cc7096fcb5b77eaadcf13d564a0748 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-18T12:23:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 yukita_fy_dr_guara.pdf: 4681342 bytes, checksum: d4cc7096fcb5b77eaadcf13d564a0748 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-04 / Na busca pela competitividade, muitas empresas acabam adotando estratégias muito semelhantes baseadas nas práticas mais usuais e difundidas em seus respectivos negócios. Além dos recursos financeiros em si, as empresas também investem tempo e esforços para atingir desempenhos semelhantes às mais competitivas, as quais julgam ser o “benchmarking”, ou seja, a referência em seus negócios. Entretanto, buscar somente se espelhar nas melhores práticas das empresas de referência não possibilita tornar-se líder no negócio, pois para tanto seriam necessários outros ingredientes, outras estratégias que façam a diferença. Quando direcionado o foco para o produto em si, no caso deste estudo em específico da indústria automobilística que é um segmento bastante competitivo no mundo, faz-se necessário estratégias muito mais sofisticadas ou muitas vezes ainda inexistentes. Mencionado por diversos líderes e executivos de grandes empresas multinacionais como uma metodologia eficaz, o Design for Six Sigma, ou simplesmente DFSS, possibilita aprofundamentos e desdobramentos muito importantes para o entendimento dos mercados, de seus clientes, das suas necessidades e anseios. Pela flexibilidade do uso da metodologia do DFSS, torna-se possível desenvolver propostas e soluções para um dos diferenciais mais importantes neste mercado competitivo, a inovação. Em função da subjetividade presente sob alguns aspectos do conceito deste diferencial, propôs-se adotar a lógica fuzzy para se trabalhar com as variáveis mais importantes de natureza linguística e, combinado à relação sinal ruído de Taguchi, mensurar de forma quantitativa o grau de inovação inerentes aos produtos. Com este modelamento, validado por meio da análise de diversos sistemas veiculares que evoluíram ao longo da história automobilística, torna-se possível comparar produtos correntes com novas ideias e propostas do ponto de vista da inovação, fornecendo assim subsídios úteis para o processo de tomada de decisão / To pursue the competitiveness, many companies end up adopting similar strategies based on the most common and disseminated practices in their respective business. Beyond the financial resources, the companies also invest time and efforts in order to achieve similar performances of the most competitive ones which they deem to be "benchmarking", i.e. the reference in your business. However, simply adopting the best practices of those reference companies will not allow become a leader in their businesses, since it would require other ingredients, other strategies that make the difference. When it focuses on the product itself, specifically in the case of this study about the automotive industry, which is a very competitive segment in the world, it is necessary much more sophisticated strategies or even non-existent yet. Mentioned by several leaders and executives of multinational companies as an efficient methodology, the Design for Six Sigma, or simply DFSS, enables to understand their markets, their customers, respective necessities and yearnings, in a deep way and their deployments as well. By the flexibility of using DFSS methodology, it becomes possible to develop proposals and solutions to one of the most important differentials in this competitive market, the innovation. Due to the subjectivity around some aspects of the concept of that differential, it is proposed to adopt the fuzzy logic, to work on the most important linguistic variables and, combined with the Taguchi’s signal to noise relation, quantitatively measure the degree of innovation inherent in the products. By this modeling, validated through the analysis of several vehicular systems that have evolved throughout the automobile history, it becomes possible to compare current products with new ideas and proposals from the point of view of innovation, thus providing useful inputs to the decision-making process

The complexity of technical systems has increased significantly in order to address evolving customer needs and environmental concerns. From a product development process viewpoint, the pervasive nature of multi-disciplinary systems (i.e. mechanical, electrical, electronic, control, software) has brought some important integration challenges to overcome conventional disciplinary boundaries imposed by discipline specific approaches. This research focuses on functional reasoning, aiming to develop a structured framework based on the System State Flow Diagram (SSFD) for function modelling of complex multidisciplinary systems on a practical and straightforward basis. The framework is developed at two stages. 1) The development of a prototype for the SSFD framework. The proposed SSFD framework are tested and validated through application to selected desktop case studies. 2) Further development and extension of the SSFD framework for the analysis of complex multidisciplinary systems with multiple operation modes and functional requirements. The developed framework is validated on real world case studies collaborated with industrial partners. The main conclusion of this research is that the SSFD framework offers a rigorous and coherent function modelling methodology for the analysis of complex multidisciplinary systems. Further advantages of the SSFD framework is that 1) the effectiveness of the Failure Mode Avoidance (FMA) process can be enhanced by integrating the SSFD framework with relevant tools of the FMA process, and 2) the integration of the SSFD with the SysML systems engineering diagrams is doable, which can promote the take-up of the approach in industry.

Lösungen der Elektromobilität gelten als große Herausforderung für Entwickler und Gestalter. Da die technischen, ökonomischen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Randbedingungen einer zukünftigen Elektromobilität noch nicht fixiert sind und diese sich zudem gegenseitig beeinflussen, bedarf es bei der Gestaltung von elektrisch getriebenen Fahrzeugen eines effizienten und effektiven Zusammenspiels aller angesprochenen Disziplinen. Innovationen, die das Feld der Mobilität definieren, sind gesucht, wobei bei einer kurz- bis mittelfristigen Betrachtung sprunghafte Veränderungen nicht zu erwarten sind. Bekannte, weitgehend sequentielle und arbeitsteilige Arbeitsabläufe haben sich bislang kaum bewährt, wenn es darum geht, in kurzer Zeit erfolgreiche und zukunftsweisende Mobilitätslösungen zu generieren. Die erforderliche Entwicklungsdynamik kann nur von neuen, die Komplexität und Nichtlinearität des Zielsystems abbildenden Prozessen und Methoden erbracht werden. Dieser Text stellt einen möglichen organisatorischen Weg und einige konzeptionelle Ergebnisse vor. Beispiele für Ansätze der Automobilindustrie, das eigene Feld bei der Entwicklung von Mobilitätslösungen zu verlassen, sind der Future Award der Audi AG (Audi AG) und das BMW Guggenheim Lab (BMW AG). Zur Lösung der hier beschriebenen Aufgabe wurden in einem BMU-geförderten Forschungsvorhaben transdisziplinäre Vorgehensweisen zum Konzipieren und Gestalten eines elektrisch getriebenen innerstädtischen Servicefahrzeugs weiterentwickelt und an einem Ausführungsbeispiel erprobt (Autorenkollektiv). [... Einleitung]

In den letzten sieben Jahren sammelte das Autorenteam in über 150 Entwicklungsprojekten umfangreiche praktische Erfahrungen über das Management der frühen Phase von Produktentwicklungen in Unternehmen. Der vorliegende Artikel basiert auf diesen empirischen Eindrücken und zieht Schlüsse daraus. Er erhebt weniger den Anspruch auf wissenschaftliche Methoden und Vorgehensweisen, sondern er kommt dem einfachen Bedürfnis der Unternehmen nach, praktische Methoden und Werkzeuge zu entwickeln und anzuwenden, die zu einer Verbesserung der Qualität der Konzeptphase führen. Das Management, sollte sich in diesem Zusammenhang der Bedeutung seiner Aufgaben und Aktivitäten besonders bewusst werden. [... aus der Einleitung]

Treffen unterschiedliche Welten und Meinungsbilder aufeinander, so sind Missverständnisse und Kommunikationsprobleme unvermeidbar. Während Erstere aus den unterschiedlichen Wissensständen und Randbedingungen resultieren, ergeben sich die Kommunikationsprobleme aus den differenzierten Definitionen und Einstellungen der jeweiligen Fronten. Dieser Umstand lässt sich durch einem Blick auf die Weltgeschichte an vielen, teilweise äußerst dramatischen und einflussreichen Ereignissen leicht belegen. In der Auswirkung deutlich kleiner, aber dennoch nicht unkomplizierter sind aus Missverständnissen und Kommunikationsproblemen resultierende Konflikte im beruflichen Umfeld (Badke-Schaub & Frankberger 2004). Beispiel hierfür ist die Zusammenarbeit von Konstruktion und Design, zweier verwandter aber dennoch verständnisverschiedener Fachdisziplinen, die in der Entwicklung technischer Produkte ihren Ursprung haben. [... aus dem Text]