A inovação tornou-se um tema importante para as organizações empresariais no atual ambiente econômico, marcado pela intensa competição por mercados, tecnologias e recursos, e o cenário brasileiro não foge a regra. As empresas se esforçam para entender os fatores que influenciam a inovação e a sua complexa dinâmica a fim de desenvolverem ou ajustarem sua cultura, suas estruturas e seus processos organizacionais com o intuito de estimulá-la. O estudo da inovação não é algo totalmente novo, vários artigos e trabalhos acadêmicos foram desenvolvidos sobre o tema, não obstante, o assunto ainda é um amplo campo de pesquisa. A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo contribuir no esforço de um melhor entendimento da inovação nas empresas, mais especificamente em qual a influência das práticas do processo de desenvolvimento de produto no desempenho inovador das organizações e, a diferença de uso das práticas nas organizações com perfil mais e menos inovador. Cerca de 50 gerentes, envolvidos com a atividade de desenvolvimento de produto de empresas localizadas no Brasil de diferentes nacionalidades e tamanho, participaram da pesquisa. Técnicas de correlação e análise multivariada permitiram identificar quais práticas da atividade de desenvolvimento correlacionaram-se com os indicadores de desempenho inovador e, a diferença entre as empresas mais e menos inovadoras em relação ao uso destas. O estabelecimento de mecanismos de coleta de idéias de colaboradores, fornecedores e clientes e de um sistema para a avaliação e seleção das melhores idéias são extremamente importantes a fim de que, uma empresa identifique e selecione as melhores oportunidades tecnológicas e de mercado. Outros fatores também identificados foram: a existência de um método para a execução dos projetos na organização, a utilização de equipes multidisciplinares e a colaboração externa, com fornecedores e clientes. O envolvimento do nível executivo da empresa, apoiando a equipe de projeto, provendo diretrizes e desempenhando um importante papel nas decisões de continuar ou abortar projetos, também merece destaque. Outras práticas, no entanto, não foram passíveis de identificação na presente pesquisa como: a necessidade de alinhamento contínuo do projeto com as informações de mercado em todo o ciclo de desenvolvimento, a preocupação pela melhoria contínua e o desenvolvimento de um plano de lançamento, suportado por uma base de dados contendo informações sobre testes em protótipos, antes da introdução do produto no mercado. / The innovation has become an important subject for the corporations in the current economic environment, characterized by an intense competition for markets, technologies and resources, and the Brazilian scenario is not different. Companies struggle to understand the factors which could influence the innovation and its complex dynamic in order to create or align its culture, its organizational structure and processes with the objective to harvest it. The innovation research it is not something new, a variety of academic articles and researches have been developed about it however, the field still is a green field for research. The current work has the objective to contribute for the effort of a better understanding of corporation innovation, in special, what it is the influence of product development practices in the innovation performance and what it is the difference in the use of practices between corporations with a more or less innovator profile. Around 50 managers, involved in product development activity at companies located in Brazil of different nationality and size, joined the research. Correlation and multivariate techniques identified which product development practices correlated with innovation metrics and, the difference between companies more or less innovators regarding the use of these practices. The establishment of a mechanism for gathering employers, suppliers and customers? idea and one for assessing and selecting the best ones are extremely important in order to the company identify and select the best technologies and markets opportunities. Others factors also highlighted by the research were the existence of an established methodology for executing its projects inside the organization, the use of a multidisciplinary teams and the external collaboration, with its suppliers and customers. The executive level involvement, supporting project team, providing directives to it and playing a crucial role in the go-kill projects, also deserve some attention. Others practices however were not identified in the current research such as: the need of continuously keeping the project aligned with market information during the whole development cycle, process improvement mentality and the creation of a launching plan, supported by a database contained information about prototype tests, before the product introduction in a market.

Cell Therapies are promising clinical instruments with significant therapeutic potential and commercial promise. However, the industry engaged in their commercial and clinical development faces significant financial, technical, regulatory and market challenges. These challenges are compounded by an understanding gap in the cell therapy industry. Commercial failures and financial difficulties have forced the industry to address the need to provide value and estimate and control costs early in the development timeline. The problem is that this issue is not being systematically or thoroughly addressed in the academic community while they pursue potential future treatments. Articles that highlight the need to understand costs and value are appearing with increasing frequency highlighting a growing consensus that work needs to be carried out in this area. However examples of models and tools to predict or estimate or even calculate costs in developing and producing a product do not exist in the literature. This work consists of three parts. Part one entails a new model of the characteristics observed in cell therapy new product development. This model is an evolution of an activity based dependency structure matrix (DSM). Result from the model suggests that some favoured development strategies (such as applying for an orphan indication status) provide less financial benefit than is commonly expected. The ability to scale manufacturing levels between clinical trial phases is also a pressing problem. 3 Part two presents a model to predict the cost of manufacturing and delivering a cell therapy product. This cost of good supplied (COGS) model combines both rules and predictive activity based costing across multiple manufacturing platforms, cell types and supply chain configurations. This model highlights the significant cost burden of validating both single and, more markedly, multiple sites of manufacture. The model also examines the potential for economies of scale when using different production technology in the manufacture of human Mesenchymal Stem Cells. Based in part on the results and knowledge gleaned in parts one and two, part three outlines the development of a novel, scalable expansion system developed to enable lower cost, controlled manufacture of adherent cell populations. While still at an early stage of development the technology has demonstrated the ability to maintain cells in a high rate of growth for a longer period than traditional culture techniques. This allows for the creation of a manufacturing technology with a higher expansion ratio than manufacturing systems on the market today.

Esta tese fundamenta-se na necessidade que as empresas têm de aproveitarem os conhecimentos gerados nos projetos de produto de maneira que possam ser reutilizados em novos projetos a serem desenvolvidos, reduzindo assim esforços de desenvolvimento e melhorando o potencial inovador das equipes de produtos. Neste sentido, assume-se que existem fatores próprios do processo de desenvolvimento de produtos que podem ajudar a incentivar a TC. Porém muitos desses fatores e suas relações com outros fatores são pouco aprofundadas na literatura acadêmica. Em razão disso, esta tese propõe desenvolver um modelo para o incentivo da transferência de conhecimentos (TC) entre equipes de desenvolvimento de produto baseado na explicação das relações existentes entre os diversos fatores que influenciam a TC. A proposta desta tese está baseada em uma abordagem de pesquisa que combina aspectos qualitativos (como grupos focados, entrevistas e estudos de caso) e quantitativos (como pesquisas survey com análise multivariada de dados) aplicados em diferentes empresas (cerca de 80 nas etapas de levantamento e cinco nas etapas de aprofundamento). Por meio da utilização desses métodos obtiveram-se os seguintes resultados: (i) a proposição de um novo modelo para as etapas do processo da TC, baseado no estudo comparativo dos modelos existentes na literatura, que ajuda a entender como ocorre a TC desde o momento em que um conhecimento é reconhecido como útil para outros projetos até o momento em que o mesmo é aplicado em um novo projeto; (ii) a construção de uma taxonomia que classifica os fatores da TC em diferentes categorias, ajudando a entender melhor como os mesmos estão organizados; (iii) o estudo das características do contexto das empresas que define a prioridade que estas atribuem aos diferentes fatores da TC; (iv) a proposição de um modelo para os relacionamentos entre os fatores, que explica de maneira sistêmica a interação que ocorre entre os mesmos e (v) a proposição de um modelo para o relacionamento entre os fatores e as etapas da TC, que explica quais fatores agem de maneira direta ou indireta sobre as diferentes etapas da TC. Do ponto de vista acadêmico, os resultados ajudam a expandir o entendimento teórico sobre a TC no desenvolvimento de produtos, seguindo a corrente teórica da inovação contínua; e (ii) do ponto de vista profissional, os resultados permitem direcionar ações de melhoria da TC entre projetos, focalizando especificamente nas necessidades particulares de cada empresa. / This thesis proposes a model to foster knowledge transfer (KT) between new product development (NPD) teams. This proposal is based on companies’ need for taking advantage of knowledge generated in prior product projects by reusing it in new projects, thus reducing development efforts and improving team innovativeness. In this sense, this thesis assumes that there are organizational factors that present a general pattern of behavior and that can help to foster KT in NPD. However, an important challenge is to understand how these factors influence KT. Thus, the proposed model explains the relationships that exist among KT influence factors, as well as the relationships between these factors and the KT process stages. Furthermore, this thesis studies such relationships given different companies’ characteristics. This proposal is based on a mix-method research approach by combining qualitative studies (e.g. focus group, individual interviews, and study cases) and quantitative studies (e.g. surveys with multivariate data analysis) applied to different companies (circa 80 in the survey stage and five in the case studies). The following results were obtained, which contributed to the general proposal of the thesis: (i) a new model that explains KT process stages, based on a comparative study of prior models proposed in the academic literature; (ii) a taxonomy for KT influence factors; (iii) an analysis of firm contextual characteristics that help define the influence factors priorities; (iv) a model that explains the relationships among KT influence factors; and (v) a model that explains the relationship between KT influence factors and KT process stages. Considering these results, two main contributions of this thesis are highlighted: (i) from the academic point of view, results obtained help to extend the theoretical understanding about KT in NPD, based on the continuous innovation theoretical stream; (ii) from the practical point of view, results obtained allow to guide KT improvement in NPD, focusing on the specific needs of each company.

Developing successful new products in New Zealand Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is difficult due to several factors. These include greater expectations, new technology, reduced product lifecycles, high project failure rates, and the pressures from competition. This presents a significant challenge for a product development team as it leaves companies searching for opportunities to gain an advantage in the market place. The low level of research performed in relation to SMEs over the past number of years, especially in the field of New Product Development (NPD), has resulted in an increase in interest by practitioners and academics. This research was aimed at exploring the pre-development phase currently employed by SMEs within the New Zealand manufacturing industry. The purpose was to gauge the understanding and importance of this early stage in NPD amongst practitioners from these SMEs, as the literature highlighted this as an area of weakness requiring empirical research. Specifically, the objectives set for this research investigation were to survey manufacturing SMEs in New Zealand, compare the findings with past and current research on a national and international level, and make conclusions in relation to: • The nature and complexity of the pre-development activities performed by New Zealand manufacturing SMEs. • The difficulties and/or limitations New Zealand manufacturing SMEs encounter whilst implementing the pre-development activities. • The importance of and attitude towards the pre-development phase with regards to the overall NPD process and the company’s product development efforts. The study consisted of a questionnaire survey, run during June and July 2007 with twenty-two SMEs representing the light engineering/manufacturing, electronics, and food industry sectors. The questionnaire survey was followed up with one-on-one interviews with some of the participating companies allowing for both quantitative and qualitative data to be obtained. The research investigation found that the difficulties in carrying out the five predevelopment activities studied were common, compounded by the lack of skills inhouse to do so. Of the five pre-development activities studied, the preliminary technical analysis was found to be given the most attention by the companies with regard to overall project time, with lesser emphasis placed on the other four activities. Many of the companies developed ‘new to the world’ products or entered new markets with existing products where they primarily took part in the business-tobusiness market. Good relationships existed between the manufacturing SMEs and their suppliers, distributors and customers. Management were found to have a high level of involvement in product planning, as they tend to be involved in key decision making in NPD in SMEs. Many of the companies had difficulty when it came to identifying opportunities and customer needs, with the addition of numerous barriers limiting the implementation of NPD. The greatest difficulties arose during the practical implementation of tools and techniques due to several challenges, such as limited budgets, lack of time and resources as well as incompatibility within the existing company culture. Clearly, the pre-development phase is the basis for the remainder of the NPD process with essential development decisions being made here. This phase is therefore crucial in determining the likely outcome of NPD projects. The research findings suggested that greater consideration and effort should be placed on the pre-development phase, even more so with the cost increasing exponentially when mistakes are made later in development. The study highlighted the need to improve the tools and techniques available for use during the pre-development phase, as companies are aware of its importance but find it the most difficult to undertake. High new product failure rates; over-expenditure of project time; lack of awareness, commitment, and formality; and the high level of difficulty experienced by the New Zealand SMEs studied, suggests there is a need for the implementation of better tools and techniques during the predevelopment phase to aid successful NPD in New Zealand manufacturing SMEs.

<p><strong><em>Title</em></strong> SpotBox: The Concept Development of a Digital Jukebox</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Authors</em></strong> Guilherme Gomes & Pauline Droz</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Supervisor</em></strong> Jean-Charles Languilaire</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Level</em></strong> Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, Marketing</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong> Marketing, Concept Development, New-Product Development, NPD, Jukebox, Music, Spotify, Customer-Oriented business,Live streaming, mp3, Customer-Oriented Music System.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Purpose</em></strong> To Turn the new-product idea of the digital jukebox called SpotBox into a product concept.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Method</em></strong> In the method we explain the process to develop our concept. Based in three phases, we started by combining secondary data and primary data through a focus group in order to understand better the potential consumers of our product, then personal interviews are made with our customers and the technical requirements are measured in the end through an interview.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Theoretical framework</em></strong> Kotler´s and Cooper´s approach about New-Product Development are first introduced. Then the Concept Development theories of both authors are explained which allow us in a last paragraph to build and present our own approach of the process of concept development.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Conclusions</em></strong> The SpotBox concept developed through this work is presented and explained in detail: A digital jukebox in a futuristic shape which allows users to share, listen and program songs in a new, convenient and exciting way, giving to the music market a new customer-oriented dimension.</p>

<p>The business environment is changing rapidly, becoming very competitive and challenging for all firms, and particularly for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As innovation and new product development represent valuable sources for SMEs’ future sustainability and development, making these processes more effective is essential. Previous literature, with the focus on large firms, underlined the importance of efficiently managing the early period of new product development (NPD), as this can reduce the product’s time to market and increase its performance. For this reason, contributing to a developed understanding of the challenges of medium-sized firms in managing this phase, the fuzzy front-end (FFE) of NPD, is the aim of this study.</p><p>The theoretical framework of this study combines prior theories that relate to the difficulties, shortcomings, challenges that SMEs meet during the whole NPD process, including FFE, and theories that resulted from research on FFE in large firms. The structure is based on four elements referring to managing the idea generation process, new product development team, evaluation of product concept feasibility, and the organization of FFE.</p><p>A qualitative strategy and a research design with two case studies on high-tech, medium-sized manufacturing firms were used in reaching the purpose of this study. This methodology choice reflects the explorative purpose of this research. The empirical data are mainly primary data, collected during three interviews with development managers and a product developer, completed as well with secondary data like general company information, collected from companies’ websites.</p><p>The analysis of empirical findings revealed some relevant conclusions, which can bring value to the research area, and also to the practice. Our findings show that lack of communication with customers during the whole FFE phase, collecting limited or inaccurate information to be processed during this phase, finding the right formalization degree of FFE activities, determining the complexity of the product concept, and assessing external technology and expertise, represent the main challenges faced by medium-sized firms in the FFE of NPD.</p><p>The study’s practical relevance consists in the advices and solutions suggested to managers for overcoming the challenges of the FFE phase and improving their results in the development projects. The theoretical implications reflect the importance of organizational size variable in association with the challenges of FFE.</p><p>The sample of only two cases and the quality of the empirical data collected from two high-tech Swedish manufacturing firms which have a large focus on innovation are the main limitations of this study, as these medium-sized firms have gained some experience to face the specific challenges of FFE of NPD and the data they provide may be influenced by this aspect.</p>

Incorporating electronics and software systems into manufactured goods is becoming very common in manufacturing companies. New technical functions, increased flexibility, and compensation for mechanical design weaknesses are some key drivers of this technological change in our everyday products. The automotive industry exemplifies this trend, since approximately 80–90% of new functions in cars are based on electronics and software, and it is expected that at least a third of the total cost of a car will eventually be accounted for by electronics and software. However, one of the main downsides of this technological trend is the increasing number of quality issues related to these new technologies, something usually claimed to be a result of the increased product development complexity. Previous research into product development management has mainly concentrated on either physical products or software systems, but not concurrently on both. Additionally, much of the research has concentrated on issues of integrating marketing, R&amp;D, and manufacturing in these companies, and has treated the engineering disciplines in R&amp;D as a homogenous group. Motivated by this change in technology content and the lack of research into complex product development and especially into integration between engineering disciplines, the present work investigates how to increase operational performance in multidisciplinary engineering organizations. This work has especially focused on interdisciplinary integration and the feasibility of various so-called integration mechanisms, such as building common physical facilities, job rotation programs, the implementation and use of information and communications technology, and computer-aided engineering tools. Both qualitative and quantitative research has been performed, involving 11 different companies and over 300 respondents. Supported by the present findings, it is demonstrated that interdisciplinary integration is a crucial factor to consider, and it is concluded that certain integration mechanisms stand out as more important than others. Organizational structure, work procedures and methods, training, social systems, and computer-aided engineering were the five types of mechanisms that displayed the greatest potential for improvement. It is further concluded that the ability to successfully match the body of practices to current products is essential, since there is a high risk of current practices becoming out-dated with respect to the technology content. Furthermore, inadequate identification of or managerial ability to establish the currently most important interfaces complicate the choice of trade-offs between various technologies that are found to be essential to cope with the inherent dynamic complexity. The organizational powerbase is often re-positioned in the studied organizations, and the loss of decisive power can result in a demoralizing ignorance of newly established disciplines and their design practices. Additionally, rigid structures and counterproductive traditions can reduce the potential gains accruing from new boundary-spanning innovations, so organizational responsibilities and mandates must be declared unambiguously, in many cases differently from how they have been in the past. Based on these conclusions, it is suggested that managers in organizations like those studied must be able to do the following: cultivate software knowledge in all parts and levels of the product development organization; reassess their recruitment strategies; organize for interdisciplinary collaboration; articulate and communicate the technology fusion strategy to all disciplines; and realize and disseminate the fact that product launches do not only concern manufacturability. / QC 20100621

Title SpotBox: The Concept Development of a Digital Jukebox   Authors Guilherme Gomes &amp; Pauline Droz   Supervisor Jean-Charles Languilaire   Level Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, Marketing   Key words Marketing, Concept Development, New-Product Development, NPD, Jukebox, Music, Spotify, Customer-Oriented business,Live streaming, mp3, Customer-Oriented Music System.   Purpose To Turn the new-product idea of the digital jukebox called SpotBox into a product concept.   Method In the method we explain the process to develop our concept. Based in three phases, we started by combining secondary data and primary data through a focus group in order to understand better the potential consumers of our product, then personal interviews are made with our customers and the technical requirements are measured in the end through an interview.   Theoretical framework Kotler´s and Cooper´s approach about New-Product Development are first introduced. Then the Concept Development theories of both authors are explained which allow us in a last paragraph to build and present our own approach of the process of concept development.   Conclusions The SpotBox concept developed through this work is presented and explained in detail: A digital jukebox in a futuristic shape which allows users to share, listen and program songs in a new, convenient and exciting way, giving to the music market a new customer-oriented dimension.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the functioning of knowledge sharing in the supply chain of Taiwan IT industry and face the current practice of modular component outsourcing with a theoretical threat of architecture change and modularity trap. Today, modularity and component outsourcing became almost an prerequisite for an successful IT company. Product architectures are widespread and well defined. It is however the question nobody dares to ask – what if this changes? How can the Taiwan suppliers make sure, that they will still be in the game even if the rules change? How can they assure that their position as the cutting edge component providers won`t be taken by someone else? The basic premise of the research is, that the relationship management of supplier and buyers often seen in countries with Confucian tradition can overcome this threat thanks to deeply rooted trust and good and opened communication patterns. This paper first introduces the Supplier-buyer relationship theory and background on its functioning within the New Product Development (NPD) area. The study also touches on the issue of Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) into the New Product Development. Next the theory on Modularity and Modularity Trap are introduced. Based on the literature review, I construct an research framework, consisting of two bodies: The architecture as a variable and Buyer-supplier relationship and NPD. The major conclusions of this study are (1) The architecture of the product to be developed is an important driver on the supplier-buyer relationship creation. (2) To build the relationship with buyers is important step for the suppliers, but it can only be build around technology that is important for the buyer. (3) Supplier`s understanding of architecture knowledge of its buyers is crucial. (4) The main reason to invite supplier into New product development is buyers technological distance between what they can have and what they want to have. (5) Product Complexity (number of parts and their interconnections within the product) have a positive influence on the supplier role creation. (6) All buyers have a rather good component knowledge. (7) The management alignment will be greatly influenced byt architectural attributes of the product to be developed.

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: to, with and by (Wintelism) the suppliers. Most of the companies use ‘’to’’ the suppliers technique when they involve suppliers in innovation. Improved quality, lower cost and utilising the suppliers’ knowledge &amp; expertise are the main benefits that companies receive when they involve suppliers in innovation and product development.