Product development process (PDP) architecture holds the key to the management of New Product Development (NPD). A lot of care is exercised in managing the NPD to reduce risk and uncertainties. There exists potential scope for improvement both in initial planning as well as execution of the NPD program by studying the PDP architecture. This research work seeks to taps this potential and presents an analytical tool to aid the NPD Managers. In this research work Design Structure Matrices (DSM) are used to represent the PDP architecture. The Work Transformation Matrix (WTM) is a kind of DSM and it was introduced for the analysis of concurrent task structures. However a generalized task structure has not been studied analytically in the literature. In order to study a generalized task structure we add two new matrix types to the WTM set to represent the task network interconnections and the task interdependence. First we study the pure sequential task iteration structure for NPD and show that it has lower engineering effort (cost and time) than the concurrent task iteration structure previously discussed in literature. Next we study the generalized task iteration structure and derive the expressions for total work and cost vectors. This is a major research contribution since only simulation based methods are currently available for studying generalized task iteration structures. The optimization of sequencing interdependent tasks is a well known NP hard problem in NPD literature. For small sized task sets, exhaustive enumeration of all possible sequencing and their corresponding time or cost vectors can be computed to determine the optimal sequence. However for large sized task networks, only heuristic methods are deployed. Using the closed form expression for cost and time vectors for a pure sequential task iteration structure derived earlier in this research work, we attempt to devise a method to optimally sequence the design tasks. We develop new matrix combining both the node and link weightages of task network. Using the time vector relationship between sequential and concurrent task structures, it is shown that the optimal task sequence corresponds to the reordering of this combined matrix whose “Dominance index” (sum above the diagonal) is minimum. Finally, we use some of the standard test cases from the PDP literature to demonstrate our research findings.

The objective of this Thesis is selection and adaptation of a suitable concept of a product being created. Selecion of the suitable concept is based on the designated concept and its testing. The testing is performed by the poll method among representatives of the public and business spheres. Determination of the final product concept as well as proposal of the marketing strategy for managers of Malované Mapy, s.r.o company is the outome. It will enable the managers to work on the further steps of developnent of new products. Based on the information from technical literature, the theoretical part explains the basic marketing terminology associated with the theme of the Thesis. This terminology is then applied in the practical part in the area of information processing by the company managers.

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In an attempt to increase opportunity and quality of life for people living in poverty,governments and non-government organisations (NGOs) sell and donate products to developing countries. Typically, these are essential household items such as cook stoves, water filters and solar lighting. However, to date there has been limited research into the uptake and long term effectiveness of these products and few methods or tools are available to guide the product development process. This has resulted in a number of well documented product failures as a result of poor design choices. To overcome this problem and provide guidance to future or existing designers and NGOs this research investigated the factors required for long lasting and effective product design. This was carried out through the use of a literature review, the analysis of 64 products, a survey, interviews with product designers, and a case study with a Social Enterprise in Myanmar (Burma). The information gathered was analysed and used to create a framework consisting of various tools to guide designers and NGOs. Specifically, the research focused on the creation of a taxonomy of products designed for developing countries and an assessment method consisting of eight critical indicators for product success. These were presented as a website, set of cards and book which guides and assists designers during the process to ensure that future products are appropriate and to prevent current unacceptable levels of waste. Following the creation of the framework it was evaluated by students, practitioners and existing product users in Myanmar. The findings revealed that participants felt the assessment method and indicator cards were beneficial during the design process and assisted them in the development of more suitable and appropriate products.

The power of financial innovations to impact societies at global scales compels us to ask how innovation occurs, how it is governed and how to support the responsible initiation and emergence of such innovation in society. This thesis focuses on investigating and comparing current approaches to, and limitations of, the governance of financial innovation and perceptions of responsible financial innovation in three very different institutional settings: a large, global asset management company; a SME developing disruptive, technology - related platforms and services based on big data and associated analytics supporting customer relationship management in the banking and retail sectors; and a global insurance broker. To date there has been almost no published empirical research into the processes and governance of financial innovation in such corporate settings. The initial hypothesis that financial innovation is not governed (internally, externally) was not supported by the empirical data: rather these suggest the existence of formal and informal mechanisms for innovation governance. As suggested in the literature, financial innovation was observed to be largely incremental in nature and involve multiple stakeholders, co-ordinated internally by an ‘innovation owner’ (e.g. an individual, a group of individuals or a department). The research suggests that while there is broad statutory (regulation) and non-statutory governance of the financial sector, there is limited direct regulation of financial innovation per se. Despite this, contextual regulation (e.g. EU) and industry standards set an important governance frame within which innovation was observed to occur, complemented by a range of organizational innovation governance approaches, which ranged from completely informal, ad hoc (‘de facto’) processes to formal staging innovation management tools. It was not possible to generalize across sectors, emphasizing the need for more empirical work in other organizations in order to understand innovation management and governance across the financial sector as a whole. Responsible financial innovation is an emerging concept associated with a very small body of academic literature. The case study data show responsible financial innovation to be perceived as an ‘interpretively flexible umbrella’ term, underpinned by a value system that leads to quantifiable positive outputs (e.g. creating customer satisfaction). The research suggests that several ‘competencies’ (e.g. compliance, learning, communication, monitoring, and ownership) were perceived as relevant to responsible financial innovation by respondents. Themes emerging from the study mirrored to some extent the seven framings suggested by Armstrong et al. (2012) and Muniesa and Lenglet (2012) and the four dimensions of responsible innovation proposed by Owen et al. (2013); these however were very narrowly framed, especially with regard to second-order reflexivity (e.g. on the normative purposes and functions of finance in society). While dimensions of anticipation, reflection, deliberation and responsiveness (Owen et al., 2013) were evident to varying degrees in the cases these were narrowly configured (e.g. around ethics of data monetization, or on anticipation of operational risks), with deliberation often being internally focused, or including only a limited range of external stakeholders. These observations cause me to argue that current mechanisms for governing financial innovation are not sufficiently robust to support their responsible emergence in society. I conclude that any framework for responsible financial innovation should endeavor to broaden the scope for stakeholder engagement and make use of multi-level governance mechanisms (including committees in the innovation and governance process), while continuing to acknowledge the importance of contextual legislation in the framing of innovation trajectories. I recommend the initiation of a cross sector and independent institution for systematic financial innovations assessment, the establishment of formal cross-sector fora and communication channels to facilitate engagement with external stakeholders, and the codification of responsible financial innovation competencies into contextual legislation.

Firms developing new products often face the challenge of making investment decisions under uncertain input-cost conditions due to the price volatilities of the materials they use. These decisions need to be made long before the final products are launched on the market. Therefore, firms who invest in the opportunity to switch materials in a timely manner will have the flexibility to react to material price changes and realize competitive advantages. However, volatile material prices may also cause a firm to delay investment. Using real-options reasoning, this article studies the influence of input-cost fluctuations on the timing decision to start new product development (NPD) and thus create the follow-on opportunity to later replace an existing product. A model that combines waiting and switching options to derive influencing factors of the flexibility value which triggers the investment is developed and tested on a sample of material substitution projects from manufacturing firms. The results show how price uncertainty of the new and the old material, their joint price development, the expected project duration, and competitive preemption are related to the propensity to delay the start of NPD. The findings provide new insights on how timing in adopting materials can be used to hedge exposure to volatile material prices. The insights are relevant for adopters and producers of new materials, as well as for policy makers who strive for supporting the diffusion of new materials. (authors' abstract)

Who provides better inputs to new product ideation tasks: problem solvers with expertise in the area for which new products are to be developed, or problem solvers from "analogous" markets that are distant but share an analogous problem or need? Conventional wisdom appears to suggest that target market expertise is indispensable, which is why most managers searching for new ideas tend to stay within their own market context even when they do search outside their firms' boundaries. However, in a unique symmetric experiment that isolates the effect of market origin, we find evidence for the opposite: Although solutions provided by problem solvers from analogous markets show lower potential for immediate use, they demonstrate substantially higher levels of novelty. Also compared to established novelty drivers, this effect appears highly relevant from a managerial perspective: we find that including problem solvers from analogous markets vs. the target market accounts for almost two thirds of the well-known effect of involving lead users instead of average problem solvers. This effect is further amplified when the analogous distance between the markets increases, i.e., when searching in far vs. near analogous markets. Finally, results indicate that the analogous market effect is particularly strong in the upper tail of the novelty distribution, which again underscores the effect's practical importance. All this suggests that it might pay to systematically search across firm-external sources of innovation that were formerly out of scope for most managers. (authors' abstract)

<p> The purpose of this study is to identify the suppliers’ involvement in innovation and New Product Development (NPD) of wind turbine manufacturing. In this thesis we analysed the sources of innovation and also explored the benefits that the companies derive when they involve the suppliers in the process of innovation and NPD. We present results from the study of 31 wind turbine producers across the globe including, small, medium and large companies. The conclusions are that most of the companies claimed that they involve suppliers in innovation and NPD. In the theory chapter, we have presented different techniques of suppliers’ involvement in innovation: <strong><em>to</em></strong>, <strong><em>with</em></strong> and <strong><em>by</em></strong> (Wintelism) the suppliers. Most of the companies use ‘’<strong><em>to</em></strong>’’ the suppliers technique when they involve suppliers in innovation. Improved quality, lower cost and utilising the suppliers’ knowledge & expertise are the main benefits that companies receive when they involve suppliers in innovation and product development.</p>

To achieve success in today's competitive environment, companies are realising the importance of design collaboration during new product development. The aim of this research was to develop a collaborative design tool for use by industrial designers and engineering designers. To achieve this, a literature review was undertaken to understand the working relationship among the two disciplines during new product development. Following this, empirical research through interviews and observations outlined three problem areas: conflicts in values and principles; differences in education; and differences in representational tools and methods. The latter was chosen because the problem area of design representations was found to be highly significant. In looking at bridging differences in design representations, a taxonomy comprising 35 forms of sketches, drawings, models and prototypes was generated. A second stage of empirical research was conducted to establish the popularity of each representation and the type of design / technical information that industrial designers and engineering designers communicated with. The information was indexed into CoLab cards that would enable the two disciplines to gain joint understanding and create shared knowledge when using visual design representations. Following a pilot evaluation and minor modifications, student and practitioner interviews with a case study were employed to assess the significance of CoLab. The findings revealed that 82% of the interviewees felt CoLab to have built a common ground through the use of visual design representations. 75% gave a positive rating when asked if the system would enhance collaboration and 91% gave the physical cards a positive response as it provided instant access to information and allowed easy sharing. This thesis is a step towards a greater understanding of collaboration between industrial designers and engineering designers. The use of the CoLab system provides the prospect of achieving a common ground between the two disciplines.

Focusing on the needs of users, design can leverage new product development process by offering insightful knowledge of those needs. This research investigates the technology development of smart homes. Design is utilised as a product research tool to identify key insights of the home life of the older adults living in the UK, and for the purpose of informing the front-end of the new product development process. The review of the literature in the field of smart homes suggests that the developments have lagged by a technology-push approach, the lack of appropriate concepts from users’ perspectives as well as the lack of development strategy, which has consequently been reflected in consumers’ reluctance towards smart homes. As a result, this doctoral research aimed to ‘develop a user-oriented product design research tool that improves the understanding of the home life of older adults.’ To achieve the aim, this research employs qualitative methodology to develop a research process that utilises the cultural probe, semi-structured interview and video tour. Informed by ethnographic tradition, this research establishes its trustworthiness and credibility by employing a thorough process of analysis (qualitative analysis with computer-assisted software NVivo 8 and peers debriefing) and evaluation (creative workshop and evaluative interview) with practitioners from the field of product design, design management and design education. The result of the field investigation is presented as ten personas and taxonomy of nodes, which form the contribution of this research, a sensitising tool and process. This research contributes a sensitising tool - a design-led, user-inspired and participatory product design research that the offers insightful knowledge of those older adults and their relationships with their homes living in the UK. This sensitising tool is developed for the smart home designers for the purpose of generating new product ideas and challenges designers’ preconception of users and smart homes, and provokes reflections on the practices of user-centred and user-participatory design, as examined in the creative workshop. In addition, this research also contributes to the growing debate surrounding the issues relating to ethnographic user research and the use of cultural probe for the design of new smart homes.