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Many potential benefits of new product introductions (NPI) have been identified in existing literature, yet there are empirical and theoretical evidence that suggests that such benefits are not assured. Building on the concepts of time compression diseconomies, absorptive capacity, and time diversification, we argue that benefits that a firm derives from introducing new products depend on the process of NPI, which we conceptualize as how and what products are introduced by the firm. We propose that pace, rhythm, and the scope are three important characteristics of the process of NPI that affect firm value. Further, we argue that this effect is moderated by organizational marketing and technological intensities. We use an unbalanced panel dataset of the products introduced by public firms between 1991 and 2015 to investigate the proposed framework in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. We estimate the proposed model using a multilevel modeling framework, accounting for endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and heteroscedasticity. The proposed framework and modeling approach provide empirical support for the role of pace, rhythm and scope of NPI on firm performance, and guide managers on choosing the right growth strategy to improve new product performance.

Today, companies have to redesign and improve their operational performance to cope with the market competition. While research related to organizational improvements has focused on applications of value stream mapping in mass production plants, it is unclear whether value steam mapping can be applied in new product introduction organizations. This thesis strives to generate and describe a customized value stream mapping tool adapted to manage twofold customer value within new product introduction environments, processes that construct products and information gathered from the production and incorporated into next generation products. The study is conducted with a case study approach including an application of the model in an industrial setting. The findings implicate that the value stream mapping tool is applicable when managing performance improvements during new product introduction. Moreover, performance measures to evaluate the new product introduction information loop are presented.

Dagens företagsklimat skapar ökad press på företag att minska sin tid till marknad för nya produkter, samtidigt som konstnader ska minskas och en hög produktkvalitet skall hållas. Ett resultat av detta är att tillverkningsföretag måste utveckla och producera produkter fortare, till en lägre kostnad, med ökande kvalité för att upprätthålla sin konkurrenskraft. Inom marknaden för informations- och kommunikationsteknik sker det snabba förändringar, detta göra att produktutvecklingen är allt mer viktig. Hanteringen av produktdata är en viktig aspekt av produktutvecklingen, men också en av de mest  utmanande.  Målet  med  denna  forskningsuppsats  är  att  undersöka  vilka  processer  inom industrialisering som används för att samla och hantera produktdata. Produktdata och hanteringen av den är en viktig del av industrialiseringsprocessen samt produktutvecklingsprocessen. PIM   (Product   Introduction   and   Maintenance)   RBS   (Radio   Base   Station)   Kista   är   en industrialiseringssite och har valts för denna fallstudie – då de representerar en ledande del av produktutvecklingen för utsedda produkter inom Ericsson som är ett världsledande företag inom informations-och kommunikationstekniks industrin. Denna forskning har utförst i linje med det valda fokusområdet att undersöka, beskriva och analysera de viktigaste metoderna som används inom PIM RBS Kista för att samla in, lagra och använda produktdata under produktutvecklingen i industrialiseringsprocessen.   Syftet   med   forskningen   är   att   bidra   till   forskningsområdet produktdatahantering. Fokus har legat inom Operations, där nya produkter realiseras under olika aktiviteter och från vilken produktdata är det viktigaste resultatet. De  arbetsmetoder  som  har  identifieras  under  fallstudien  diskuteras  och  skapar  insikt  hur produktdatahantering  används  under  förverkligandet  av  nya  produkter  –  med  koppling  till produktionsverkstadsgolvet. Denna forskingsuppsats diskuterar även de huvudsakliga implikationera relaterat till produktdatahantering inom organisationen som är vald för denna fallstudie. Detta för att bidra med förbättringsförslag gällande nuvarande produktdatahanteringsmetod och system, samt verktyg, som finns implementerade idag. / In today’s market there is an increasing pressure on companies to reduce their time-to-market and lower their cost whilst maintaining a high quality on their products. As a result, manufacturing firms have to develop and produce products faster, at lower costs, and with increased quality in order to maintain their competiveness. The information and communications technology (ICT) market is a fast  changing  market,  which  makes  the  development  process  all  the  more  important.  The management of product data is an important aspect of the product development process, but also one of the most challenging. Product data and product data management (PDM) are important aspects of the new product introduction (NPI) process and in turn the product development process. This research is based on a case study research conducted at PIM (Product Introduction and Maintenance) RBS (Radio Base Station) Kista. PIM RBS Kista is a lead-site responsible for NPI and product development for certain appointed products within Ericsson, a world leading multinational corporation in the ICT industry. In alignment with the research focus the main processes used within PIM RBS Kista to gather, store, and use product data during product development in the NPI process has been described and analysed – in order to contribute to the PDM research field. The focus has been within the Operations department, in which new products are realised during different activities and from which product data is the main output. The processes identified and analysed provides insight how PDM is used during product realisation and its connection to the production shop floor. The thesis also discusses the main complications within the case organisation and suggests improvements regarding the current PDM processes and systems/tools used.

近年來台灣工業用塑膠製造產業因技術門檻降低、國內人力成本提升，導致廠商的營運愈來愈艱困，並開始尋求各種轉型的方式，包括研發新技術、轉戰高科技市場、改良設備、開發綠色產品…等。在這麼多轉型的選項中，研發一直被視為是企業維持長期競爭力的指標，而本研究即以此為出發點，探討研發管理、新產品開發專案管理、以及經營績效的關聯性。 為求貼近實務狀況，了解當前工業用塑膠製造廠商如何利用研發提升經營績效，本研究選擇採用個案研究法，並挑選於台灣上櫃的M公司作為個案公司，藉由其實際開發案例，分析研發管理、新產品開發專案管理與經營績效三者之間的關係。 研究結果顯示，雖然研發管理與新產品開發專案管理都各自能為公司提升部分的經營績效，但新研發技術運用的順遂與否卻仰賴部門間的合作，唯有在大家具有相同的共識時，企業內部資源才得以整合，並為公司帶來效益。因此，企業除了可以藉由各作業流程的改善提升經營績效外，也可利用共同績效指標的訂定，確保各部門間有一致的方向，以利公司整體運作。

The ongoing globalization of companies has resulted in a highly competitive business climate where companies have to be cost-effective but still flexible with fast response to customer feedback and present in the international scene. In order to meet the fast paced technological development from the competition and changing demand of the customers, companies focus on creating new products and reducing their time-to-market with an early product launch to gain profits from increased market shares. However, in order to maintain profitability of the new product, it becomes even more important for the company to quickly deploy a full-scale production of the product, also known as the production ramp-up phase. Despite being known as a major cost driver in new product development projects, production ramp-up is a research area which have yet received sparse attention compared to research on product launch and time-to-market in new product development projects. However, with shorter product life-cycles and higher market competition it has resulted in a need to shorten the length of a new product’s ramp-up time without making any trade-off to the cost-effectiveness of the ramp-up project and the end product’s final quality. The study identifies the common problems in volume production of a contract electronics manufacturer and their sources of disturbances from the new product introduction process. It also identifies the factors influencing the new product introduction process at the company and how these factors are connected different sources of disturbances. To identify these findings, a single case study was designed and performed at Orbit One AB, a contract electronics manufacturer with a low-volume production of products. The data collection course was executed in an iterative manner over a period of four months through interviews, observation and internal documentation and was backed up and analyzed with a literature study. The data collection through interviews was carried out in two separate rounds, where the first round of interviews was focused on identifying the common problems in volume production and the second round was focused on the factors influencing the output from the new product introduction process. The discoveries from the interviews were analyzed together with the other sources of collected data to reach a conclusive analysis. The results of the study showed that the most common problems in volume production of the company could be traced to six different sources of disturbances: Product, Production System, Design-Production Interface, Quality, Resource Management, and Personnel. The most common problems could also be summarized as: Problems with manufacturability of product; High variation of process performance, Poor correctness of information, Quality issues with products, and High workload on resources. The factors identified in the findings of the study shows that there are multiple and connected factors which affects the final output of the new product introduction process which corroborates with earlier studies and research in the area of production ramp-up. The study did identify two factors which has not been identified by other ramp-up studies, these were: Lack of organizational project culture and customer flexibility.

The interest of researchers and practitioners in e-Word-of-Mouth has accelerated with the rise of social media platforms. In the last decade it became more apparent that customers are not merely recipients of product and brand information, but also active participants in shaping product and brand perceptions. However, still no comprehensive understanding of customers’ desire to engage in positive and negative e-Word-of-Mouth has been found. Therefore, this study focuses on Customer Engagement in order to provide knowledge on what makes customers engage in e-Word-of-Mouth. We narrow our study to New Product Introductions due to their crucial role in both business success and failure. In order to study this topic, quantitative methodology using big data analysis of around 20 millions tweets in total, with text analysis of around three million items, obtained from Twitter has been applied. The findings indicate that Brand Benefits and Innovativeness Level are two important aspects that impact Attitudinal Engagement which enables Customer Engagement Behavior.