| 1. |
- Gutierrez, Ernesto, et al.
(författare)
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What's a good idea? : Understanding evaluation and selection of new product ideas
- 2009
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Ingår i: DS 58-3: Proceedings of ICED 09, the 17th International Conference on Engineering Design, vol 3, 2009. - 9781904670070 ; , s. 121-132
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper investigates how ideas for new products are evaluated and selected in industrial companies. It is based on an empirical and explorative study in three companies, using qualitative interviews. The findings indicate that a good idea is the result of a process in which at the same time the idea is generated, evaluated and selected. This process determines which ideas are further developed, which of them reach a formal decision-making forum and, to some extent, the decisions made in these official forums. This process is characterized by a social and a cognitive aspect, overlooked in normative literature. The social aspect is about interaction between people that makes possible to combine formal and informal processes, and rational and non-rational approaches for developing and evaluating ideas with different grades of ambiguity and uncertainty. The cognitive aspect refers to how ideas and company's context are interpreted, in individual and collective levels, for making evaluations on ideas. Implications of these findings for designing supporting methods for evaluation and selection of ideas are discussed; and general descriptions of a practical method suggested.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Kihlander, Ingrid, et al.
(författare)
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Concept Decisions – a Web of Interconnected Actions
- 2009
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Ingår i: Proceeding of 16th International Product Development Management Conference, IPDMC, EIASM, 7-9 juni, Twente, Holland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 4. |
- Kihlander, Ingrid, 1976-
(författare)
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Concept decisions in product development process
- 2009
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Successful concept decisions are crucial for product development organisations. Failure in theconcept decision-making process means costly rework, requiring resources that could havebeen spent on innovative work with new products instead. This licentiate thesis tackles theconcept decision-making process and how to improve it. The research presented here is thefirst part of a research project, with an action research approach, that will develop newsupporting working procedures for concept decision making and thereby contribute to moresuccessful products.Empirical studies were conducted in Swedish industrial practice, particularly focusing oneorganisation, and it was found that concept decisions are not made at a certain point in time.Instead, many decisions and activities, on several organisational levels, were adding up to theconcept decisions in the investigated organisations. The concept decision-making process wasfound to be a web of interconnected activities, with many decisions integrated and embedded in the process. Itwas also found that both formal and informal factors influence the concept decision-makingprocess and main factors were identified as: Project and product request, Supporting structures androutines, Individual competence and driving forces, Teamwork and company culture and Contextualcircumstances. These factors represent different perspectives, meaning on what level theyinfluence concept decision making: individual, team, project, organisation, and context, and in orderto create improvements in the concept decision-making process all levels have to beconsidered. The knowledge of the different perspectives has implications for howimprovements should be designed.Larger product developing companies do often have internally defined formal workingprocedures that prescribe how to develop products within the company. The thesis discusseshow the internal working procedures relate to academic theory and to practice. It wasconcluded that internal formal working procedures has not been discussed in a sufficient wayin earlier engineering design research. Furthermore, means for improving the concept decisionmakingprocess are discussed, and it was concluded, based on interviews with practitioners,that the strongest pragmatic means for improvement were developing mindset and applyingmethods. Mindset addresses the awareness, attitude and approach needed for management (andco-workers) working in early product development phases. Methods mainly addresses the needfor having relevant supporting working procedures in general and templates for evaluationalternative solutions in particular. Finally, recommendations for future design of a template forevaluation alternative solutions are presented.
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| 5. |
- Kihlander, Ingrid, et al.
(författare)
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Deficiencies in Management of the Concept Development Process : Theory and Practice
- 2009
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED'09, Design Society. ; , s. 267-278
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Concept development is a key success factor in product development and in theory concept development means that a number of concept solutions are generated and evaluated in an objective way using a systematic evaluation method. This paper presents identified deficiencies in both theoretical models and industrial product development. The aim is to supplement previous research, by increasing the understanding of how concept decisions are managed in product development in practice, in order to suggest proposals for improvement of management procedures. Empirical studies have been performed in two large product developing companies that act on the global market. The results imply that actors in the concept development, instead of evaluating different alternatives (as recommended in theory), rather are struggling with developing a solution that will fulfill the specifications. Decisions concerning concepts are found to be embedded in a complex weave of actors and activities that characterizes concept development. It is concluded that changes are required in theory as well as in working procedures in practice in order to actually support the actors in product development.
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| 6. |
- Kihlander, Ingrid, et al.
(författare)
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DEPENDENCIES IN CONCEPT DECISIONS IN COMPLEX PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
- 2008
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Ingår i: 10TH INTERNATIONAL DESIGN CONFERENCE - DESIGN 2008. - 9789536313891 ; , s. 1159-1166
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The paper presents results from a retrospective case study in the automotive industry with the purpose to identify dependencies in product concept decisions taking into consideration social aspects, decision structures and technology. Interviews and document reviews, such as gate reports and design reviews, formed the empirical base. The company in question has a documented and mandatory product development process with defined instructions, process maps and a basic chain of command. In spite of the operational support, the company still suffers from a certain amount of rework based on incorrect concept decisions. Results from the empirical study show how both formal and informal factors did affect the concept decision in the studied case.
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