Innovation Management and New Product Development for Engineers, Volume II

Supplement

Rob Dekkers

• Publisher: Momentum Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781947083936
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Projektmanagement im Maschinenbau

Whereas innovation has become part of daily language, in practice, realizing new product and new service development is a complex and daunting task for engineers, design engineering managers, managers, and those involved in other functions in organizations. Most books on innovation management approach this topic from a managerial or economic perspective; this text takes the actual design and engineering processes as starting point. To this purpose, it relates product design and engineering processes and their management to sources of innovation, collaboration with suppliers, and knowledge providers (for example, inventors and universities), and users.

The managerial aspects get ample attention as well as the socioeconomic aspects in the context of product design and engineering. For this wide range of topics, the book provides both theoretical underpinning and practical guidance. Readers and students will benefit from this book by not only understanding the key mechanisms for innovation but also by the practical guidance it offers. The author uses diagrams, models, methods, and steps to guide readers to a better understanding of innovation projects. This practical approach and the link to theory make the book valuable to practitioners as well as engineering students.

CHAPTER 9

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES FOR INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

Even though the previous chapters have often referred to originators of thoughts relevant to innovation and technology management, the view on how to manage innovation and new product development best is still changing. This is caused for part by the shift from optimizing manufacturing to creating new products and services, albeit this happened gradually. Views and contributions by academics have followed these changes, and consequently, there is more attention for the rationalization of innovation and technology management, and the rationalization of new product and service development; an example of the latter is lean product development. In addition to the rationalization, new topics emerge. Some of these are driven by the possibilities of information and communication technologies, for instance, living labs and crowdsourcing, and others by socio-economic development with sustainability of products being a case in point. Furthermore, conceptualizations of innovation and technology management by academics, such as open innovation, suddenly get attention. These three shifts in practice and thinking also lead potentially to new practices and new insight for innovation and technology management, and new product and service development.

Thus, this chapter covers a wide range of contemporary topics for innovation and technology management. Section 9.1 starts this chapter with looking at the conceptualization of lean product development; the writing in the section is derived from an extensive literature review (Salgado and Dekkers, forthcoming). This section relates its methods and tools of new product development to previous sections in this book. Another contemporary development is found in Section 9.2: open innovation. This popular take on innovation in collaborative networks emphasizes that companies seek external sources for ideas, inventions, and technology, and conversely that companies look for opportunities to commercialize intellectual property both internally and externally. Collaboration is also crucial for living labs and smart cities, the topics of Section 9.3. The development of artifacts based on information and communication technologies based on involvement of users and other stakeholders is at the center of these approaches. The possibilities of information and communication technology have also stimulated crowd-sourcing, the topic of Section 9.4. Whereas crowdsourcing in a wider sense could be seen as engaging with larger groups for a common goal, this section will look at its relevance for innovation management and new product and service development. The final topic is sustainability in Section 9.5; the environmental and societal impact of new products and services has come to the fore and is now something that needs to be considered as part of life-cycle management (see Section 3.1). The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the main concepts of these five contemporary topics for innovation management.

9.1 LEAN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

During the 1990s, the concept of lean product development started to emerge as a new approach to product and service development. This theme was based on the successful approach of Toyota for developing new products after it had become famous for its Toyota Production System, a concept for efficient and flexible mass production of cars (see, for example, Holweg [2007] for a description). But, this rooting of the concept of lean product development in the practices at Toyota Motor Company also brings along two different ways of looking at lean product development. These two will be discussed first in this section before more detail is provided on tools and methods for value creation, considering manufacturing, and management of new product development; this section will conclude with the recently introduced concept of lean innovation.

9.1.1 TWO DIFFERENT APPROACHES

The first approach is more or less the application of the techniques and methods of lean production to the processes of design and engineering. This strand of thinking originates in the Lean Aerospace Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to a lesser extent in the UK Lean Aerospace Initiative, particularly its research at the University of Bath. Similar to lean production, this approach aims to reduce waste in the processes of new product and service development to make it more efficient and effective. An example of this work is found in the presentation of Nightingale (2002, p. 13) when she discusses improvement in the engineering release process. The methods that were used to improve this process were value stream mapping, removing bottlenecks, redesign of processes for a sequential flow, waiting times removed, and delays avoided; after these methods, the cycle time was reduced by 73 percent, the rework decreased from 66 percent to less than 3 percent, and the number of signatures needed brought down with 63 percent. Note that a number of studies (e.g., Ringen and Welo 2015, p. 358) have indicated that systems engineering companies, such as the aerospace and defense industries, seem to be more susceptible to waste and reduced efficiency. From experiences in these industries, Nightingale (2002, p. 11) gives examples of how the principle of waste reduction can be applied to product and service development; see Table 9.1. Thus, reduction of waste in the processes of new product development is one approach to lean product development.

The second approach has derived principles for lean product development by looking at how Toyota Motors was managing the development of cars. According to Liker and Morgan (2006, pp. 10–15), the approach of Toyota Motors to new product development consists of 13 principles divided into three categories; see Table 9.2. These three categories are process, people, and tools. Characteristic for the category of principles for managing processes is again the focus on waste elimination facilitated by standardization of processes. This is complemented by so-called frontloading. This means that, during early stages of the design and engineering process, alternative solutions are considered; see Subsection 2.4.4 for the controlled convergence method. Note that the controlled convergence method is called set-based concurrent engineering in lean product development. Because there is space to consider alternative solutions, it is possible to find the most suitable solution considering the entire product life-cycle (see Chapter 3). Another objective of managing the processes for product development is leveling the flow so that a more constant allocation of engineers and resources can be achieved to specific phases of the product development process; this perspective views the product and service development as a production line. The second category of principles of lean product development—people—emphasizes leadership, technical competence, and continuous improvement. Very typical for lean product development is the explicit function of the chief engineer. This person carries the overall responsibility for not only integrating functional contributions, but also for managing projects and developing technical competence. The latter is done through the mechanism of continuous improvement, a feature of the concepts of lean production; continuous improvement aims at reducing variation and making outcomes of processes more predictable (note the link with the first category). The focus on continuous improvement is reflected in the third category of principles for lean product development: tools. To facilitate continuous improvement, visualization plays a key role in addition to the use of tools for standardization and organizational learning. Technology for product and service development is seen as a supporting process, rather than an objective itself. Thus, the three categories of principles (processes, people, and tools) in the second approach are more encompassing than the first approach to lean product development, which focuses on reduction of waste; this also means that some of the principles of the second approach relate to the previous chapters.

Table 9.1. Principles of waste from lean production applied to new product development

Principle	Application to new product development
Over-production	Creation of unnecessary data and information Information over-dissemination Pushing, not pulling, data
Inventory	Lack of control Too much information Complicated retrieval Outdated, obsolete information
Transport	Information incompatibility Software incompatibility Communications failure Security issues
Unnecessary movement	Lack of direct access Reformatting
Waiting	Late delivery of information Delivery too early (leads to rework)
Defective products	Haste Lack of review, tests, and verifications Need for information or knowledge, data delivered
Processing	Unnecessary serial production Excessive or custom formatting Too many iterations

Source: Nightingale (2002, p. 11).

Table 9.2. Management principles for lean product development derived from Toyota

Category	Principle	Description and comments
Process	Establish customer-defined value to separate value added from waste.	Lean is a continuous process of waste elimination. Waste is non-value added defined by first defining customer value.
	Frontload the product development process by thoroughly exploring alternative solutions while there is maximum design space.	Defining the wrong problem or converging prematurely on the wrong solution causes additional costs throughout the product lifecycle. Taking time to thoroughly explore alternatives and solve anticipated problems at the root cause has exponential benefits for the later stages of development and manufacturing.
	Create a leveled product development process flow.	Leveling the flow starts with stabilizing the process, so that it can be predicted and appropriately planned. This allows product planning to reduce variations in workload. Predictable variations in workload can be staffed through flexible pools of engineers and support staff.
	Utilize rigorous standardization to reduce variation, to create flexibility, and to achieve predictable outcomes.	Standardization is the basis for continuous improvement. Standardization of the product and process is a foundation for all the other process principles.
People	Allocate a chief engineer to integrate development from start to finish.	The chief engineer is the master architect with final authority and responsibility for the entire product development process. The chief engineer is the overarching source of product and process integration.
	Organize to balance functional expertise and cross-functional integration.	Deep functional expertise combined with superordinate goals and the allocation of a chief engineer provides the balance sought by the matrix organization.
	Develop technical competence in all engineers.	Engineers must have deep specialized knowledge of the product and process, which comes from direct experience at the place where production takes place.
	Fully integrate suppliers into product development.	Suppliers of components must be seamlessly integrated into the development process with compatible capabilities and culture.
	Build learning and continuous improvement.	Organizational learning is a necessary condition for continuous improvement and builds on all of the other principles.
	Build a culture to support excellence and relentless improvement.	Excellence and continuous improvement in the final analysis reflect the organizational culture.
Tools	Adapt technology to fit with people and processe...