bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Turning New Product Development into a Continuous Learning Process
Authors: Hughes G. David , Chafin Don C. 
Published: October 2003

Product developers understand the difficulties of trying to hit a moving target from atop a runaway train. Competitors come and go, technological change occurs at an ever‐increasing rate, customer wants and needs are constantly shifting, and a product's life cycle may be shorter than its development time. We can't meet these challenges with a methodical, step‐by‐step approach to product development. In such a fast‐paced environment, product development must be transformed into a continuous, iterative, learning process focused on customer value.G. David Hughes and Don C. Chafin describe one means for making this transformation: the value proposition process (VPP). The objectives of this development approach are continuous learning, identifying the certainty of knowledge used for decision‐making, building consensus, and focusing on adding value.The VPP consists of a framework of continuous planning cycles, called the value proposition cycle (VPC), and an integrated screening methodology, called the value proposition readiness assessment (VPRA). The VPC comprises four iterative loops, addressing the following activities: Capturing the market value of the proposition (Does the customer care?); Developing the business value (Do we care?); Delivering a winning solution (Can we beat the competition?); and, Applying project and process planning (Can we do it?).Somewhat akin to stage‐gate methods (but with the added dimension of continuous cycling), the VPRA involves screens along each loop in the VPC. This screening methodology summarizes the company's critical success factors, allowing the project team to assess the success potential of a new product idea. Each screen involves a structured set of questions. For each question, respondents provide three measures: their evaluation of that success factor's favorability to the company's position, the certainty of their evaluation, and their estimate of the relative importance of that success factor.Rather than building a model that computes a weighted‐sum score for predicting the success of a new idea, the VPRA serves as a consensus facilitator, allowing team members to see how closely they agree. The certainty measures help the team identify knowledge gaps, and the importance measures help the team set priorities for successive iterations of the VPRA.
Development of a Technical Innovation Audit
Authors: Chiesa Vittorio , Coughlan Paul , Voss Chris A. 
Published: October 2003

Measuring performance is helpful, but it's only part of the story. To learn from our past successes and failures, we need to understand how they came about. To continually improve, we must examine not only our innovation performance, but the processes with which we develop and exploit these innovations.Vittorio Chiesa, Paul Coughlan, and Chris Voss present a framework for auditing technical innovation management. Their auditing methodology goes beyond performance measurement by highlighting problems and needs, and providing information that can be used in developing action plans for improving performance.The foundation of their audit methodology is a process model of technical innovation. The model addresses the managerial processes and the organizational mechanisms through which innovation is performed. Underlying this method is the notion that success in innovation is related to good practice in the relevant management processes. The model identifies four core processes: concept generation, product development, process innovation, and technology acquisition. Supporting these core processes are three enabling processes: the deployment of human and financial resources, the effective use of appropriate systems and tools, and senior management leadership and direction. The outcome from these core and enabling processes is performance in terms of innovation and the resulting competitiveness in the marketplace.This model provides the basis for a detailed audit of current innovation practice and performance. The audit has two dimensions: the process audit assesses whether the processes necessary for innovation are in place and the degree to which best practice is used; and the performance audit focuses on the outcomes of each core and enabling process and of the overall process of technological innovation and its effect on competitiveness. The performance audit helps identify needs and problems, but it doesn't explain why gaps exist between current and required performance and it doesn't provide an action plan for closing these gaps. The process audit meets these needs.The audit methodology uses a two‐level approach: a rapid assessment based on innovation scorecards and an in‐depth audit. These scorecards provide an overview of the company's strengths and weaknesses with regard to technical innovation management, highlighting those areas that require in‐depth examination. The in‐depth audit identifies not only the processes, but the areas within each requiring attention.
Customizing Concurrent Engineering Processes: Five Case Studies
Authors: Swink Morgan L. , Sandvig J. Christopher , Mabert Vincent A. 
Published: October 2003

Once hailed as the salvation of U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, concurrent engineering (CE) offers the potential for faster development of higher quality, more producible products. Unlike traditional, serial approaches to new product development (NPD), CE emphasizes cross‐functional integration and concurrent development of a product and its associated processes.As Morgan L. Swink, J. Christopher Sandvig, and Vincent A. Mabert explain, however, CE is not a plug‐and‐play process. Successful CE implementation approaches differ depending on such factors as product characteristics, customer needs, and technology requirements. We can better understand those differences by examining CE implementation in the five NPD programs discussed here: the Boeing 777 aircraft, the heavy duty diesel engine at Cummins Engine Co., the thermoplastic olefin automotive coating at Red Spot Paint and Varnish Co., the airborne vehicle forward‐looking infrared night vision system at Texas Instruments, and the digital satellite system at Thomson Consumer Electronics.Teams provide the primary integration mechanism in CE programs, and three types of teams appeared frequently in these projects: a program management team, a technical team, and numerous design‐build teams. Depending on the project's complexity, an integration team may be needed to consolidate the efforts of various design‐build teams. Task forces also may be formed to address specific problems, such as investigating an emerging technology.Some projects emphasized collocation and face‐to‐face communication. Others relied on phone conversations, documents, and electronic mail. Projects focusing on design quality relied on formal presentations and periodic review meetings. Projects emphasizing development speed required frequent, informal communications. Programs addressing design quality required extended product definition and performance testing, with input from design engineering, marketing, and customers. Efforts to reduce development time involved small, informal teams led by design engineers and managers. Aggressive product cost goals necessitated intensive interaction between product designers and manufacturing personnel. Highly innovative products required early supplier involvement and joint engineering problem solving. Formal design reviews and shared design data systems aided information sharing between internal and external design groups.
Architectural Redesign, Interpersonal Communication, and Learning in R&D
Authors: Moenaert Rudy K. , Caeldries Filip 
Published: October 2003

An effective R&D organization needs information from a complex web of sources, including customers, suppliers, sales and marketing, and company management. Within the R&D organization, information must flow into and among numerous teams. This network of interpersonal communications can go a long way toward determining the success of a company's innovation efforts.In an exploratory study of a Belgian company operating in the telecommunications industry, Rudy K. Moenaert and Filip Caeldries examine the effects of interpersonal communication on market and technological learning in R&D. Trying to improve the flow of information into and within its R&D organization, this company designed its new R&D facility with an eye toward improving both market and technological learning throughout the organization. By locating R&D personnel in closer proximity to one another, management hoped to provide them with improved access to market and technological information, and thus increase their innovativeness.Contrary to expectations, placing R&D professionals in closer proximity to one another did not increase technological learning in this organization. In fact, technological learning actually decreased slightly during the period studied, though the change is not statistically significant. On the other hand, market learning and product innovativeness improved significantly during the period studied. For an R&D professional in this company, members of other R&D teams seem to be more important as sources of market information than as sources of technological information.Surprisingly, the relocation of R&D personnel also did not increase the amount of communication that takes place, either within a project team, between members of different teams, or between R&D professionals and the management steering committee. However, the architectural redesign does appear to have improved the quality of communication. R&D team leaders report that since the relocation, the information flowing into R&D has been more customer focused. This is attributed to the company's ongoing efforts to provide the tools and structures necessary for supporting the objectives of the architectural redesign. For example, implementation of quality function deployment (QFD) has helped innovation team members to focus more clearly on relevant information. The success of the architectural design required approaching this effort as a complex, ongoing process, rather than a quick‐fix solution.
Remodularization of a Product Line: Adding Complexity to Project Management
Authors: Lundqvist Mats , Sundgren Niklas , Trygg Lars 
Published: October 2003

Faced with ever‐tighter schedules, product development professionals employ various methods for staying at least one step ahead of the competition. In particular, an autonomous, cross‐functional team offers an effective structure for meeting the sometimes conflicting objectives of timely delivery of a high‐quality, easily manufactured product. To complicate matters, however, companies must manage not only individual projects, but also entire product lines. Changes in product and process technology eventually necessitate revamping of the product architecture—that is, the remodularization of a product line. Can an autonomous project team provide the long‐term perspective necessary for such efforts? Or, does remodularization of a product line require centralized oversight by functional management?Mats Lundqvist, Niklas Sundgren, and Lars Trygg explore this issue by examining product development efforts at two Swedish manufacturing companies. Specifically, their study explores this research question: Does a high degree of project autonomy limit the possibility for effective remodularization of product architecture?Both companies were involved in remodularization projects with stringent requirements for project cost and duration, but the companies employed markedly different managerial models in these efforts. One company took a centralized approach, except that two design engineers worked full time on the project. The other company used the autonomous model, with two exceptions: functional managers worked closely with some project members during the task specification phase of the project; and the project leader, though a heavyweight in many respects, did not have formal decision‐making power.The latter project demonstrated that an autonomous project team can maintain a long‐term perspective during development of a product. In other words, this project team was able to meet challenging time and cost objectives while developing a product consisting of highly compatible modules and subsystems. Although a centralized management approach might be expected to offer greater efficiency, the company using that approach failed to meet project goals for development time, product cost, and long‐term product line effectiveness. However, the shortcomings of that effort are more directly attributable to the management style of the project leader than to the management structure employed.
An Exploratory Study of the Innovation Evaluation Process
Authors: Olshavsky Richard W. , Spreng Richard A. 
Published: October 2003

In their search for the keys to successful product innovation, product managers and researchers typically focus on trying to identify the most effective organizational processes, strategies, and structures. Surprisingly, little or no effort is directed toward understanding the process that consumers use for evaluating an innovation. By gaining insight into this evaluation process, a firm can present an innovative product in a more effective manner and thus increase the likelihood that consumers will respond favorably to the innovation.Richard W. Olshavsky and Richard A. Spreng provide insight into this process by describing the results of an experiment in which subjects were asked to evaluate several innovative concepts. From their observations, they develop a model of the detailed information‐processing steps that these consumers employed in order to evaluate the new products.Consistent with previous research, they found that judgment was the predominant evaluation strategy, particularly for the most innovative concepts. Various subjects also used a categorization strategy, though none used categorization for more than four of the nine concepts that were evaluated. Contrary to expectations, none of the evaluations relied solely on the manufacturer's reputation or the recommendation of a friend.In a simplified model of the evaluation process, when presented with an innovative concept, consumers first attempt to categorize the product. In other words, an innovation may be rejected simply because consumers somehow link it to an existing category that has a negative connotation. If consumers cannot categorize the product, they then employ a judgment process based on some evaluative criteria.Based on the data collected in this study, this simplified model is extended to include four other cognitive processes that strongly influence the evaluation process: forming evaluative criteria, forming expectations about the innovative concept, assessing satisfaction with an old product, and comparing the new and old products. When faced with a highly innovative concept, consumers may find it difficult to form their own evaluative criteria and expectations concerning that innovation. Consequently, managers may have an opportunity to shape the judgment process by educating consumers about the appropriate evaluative criteria or by clearly communicating the product's attributes, benefits, and appropriate use.
Factors Affecting New Product Success: Cross‐Country Comparisons
Authors: Mishra Sanjay , Kim Dongwook , Lee Dae Hoon 
Published: October 2003

Although considerable effort has been devoted to identifying the factors that contribute to new product success and failure, plenty of work remains to be done in this area. For example, many studies of this subject focus on companies in specific parts of the world (in particular, North America, Europe, and Japan). It remains to be seen whether the findings from these studies apply to the new product development (NPD) efforts of companies in other regions, let alone on a global basis.Sanjay Mishra, Dongwook Kim, and Dae Hoon Lee address this issue in a study of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of NPD efforts in South Korean firms. To explore the question of whether a global set of success factors can be identified, they compare their findings with those of similar studies conducted in Canada and China. Classifying these countries in terms of stages of economic development (with China and Canada at opposite extremes and Korea in the middle), they expect to find the greatest dissimilarities in their comparisons of China and Canada.Marketing managers from 144 Korean firms provided in formation about 288 successful and unsuccessful products. Their responses indicate that the factors most closely related to new product outcomes in Korea are market intelligence, product‐firm compatibility, the nature of the new product idea (for example, whether the product idea was market derived, whether the product specifications were clearly defined by the marketplace), launch effort, and general characteristics of the new product venture (such as the product's innovativeness to the market and its technical complexity). Several of these factors were emphasized in studies of Canadian and Chinese NPD success, though respondents to those studies also highlighted the importance of the product offering and proficiency of formal NPD activities.Contrary to expectations, China and Canada show the greatest similarity among the three countries studied, in terms of the relative importance of the various NPD success factors. On the other hand, China and Korea are more similar in terms of the effects of the variables studied. In other words, if a variable is related to new product failure in Korea, that variable is most likely also related to failure in China. Although some similarities are evident among all three countries, the findings in this study do not point toward a single, global formula for NPD success.
Trends in Substandard Housing 1940–1980
Authors: Clemmer Richard B. , Simonson John C. 
Published: October 2003

“A decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family” has remained an elusive goal since it was first stated by Congress in the Housing Act of 1949. This owes in large part to the difficulty of translating the goal into practical definitions of housing objectives, and of developing reasonably precise estimates of U.S. housing quality, especially as these estimates may be changing over time. This paper discusses the difficulties involved in measuring housing (in)adequacy, reviews previous definitions of U.S. housing quality, and delineates a measure of housing inadequacy. Then, based upon this current measure, the numbers of inadequate housing units are calculated for 1973–1978 (years for which complete Annual Housing Survey data are available), melded with the traditional measure of “substandard” housing for the years 1940–1970, and predicted for 1979–1980 (years for which only core AHS data were currently available).The study's principal findings are twofold:First, The U.S. housing stock has shown a fairly steady improvement in average quality during the last forty years, a trend that appears to be continuing.Second, while the search for better measures of housing quality must continue, HUD's current definition of physically inadequate housing represents the state of the art and, with proper calibration, provides a reasonably consistent basis for measuring U.S. housing quality over time.
The Report of the President's Commission on Housing:
Authors: Weicher John C. 
Published: October 2003

This paper discusses the recommendations of the President's Commission on Housing in the area of low‐income housing policy and programs. It concentrates on the basic policy proposals concerning future program directions, which occupy the first two chapters of the Commission's Report[7]. It does not attempt to address the continuing problems of extant public housing projects, which occupied a significant fraction of the Commission's time and is the subject of Chapter 3 of the Report. Nor does it consider the special housing concerns of the elderly and handicapped, which are treated briefly in Chapter 4.The paper first describes recent developments in housing policy, up to the time when the Commission began its deliberations, in mid‐1981. It then presents the Commission's analysis of the housing problems confronting lower‐income households and summarizes the Commission's policy recommendations. These two sections correspond roughly to the first two chapters in the report. They attempt to summarize the Report as briefly as possible, and devote more attention to the process by which the Commission reached its conclusions, and the analysis which underlay them. The final section discusses the current political status of the Commission's recommendations.
Summary of an Article on Reforming Land‐Use Regulations
Authors: Goldman Ellis G. , Field Charles G. 
Published: October 2003

This article describes how excessive land use control adversely affects the cost of housing. Numerous studies showing the impact of over‐regulation on housing costs are cited. The article provides both a historical and philosophical context for public land use regulation and describes key judicial decisions as well as competing public and private interests that shape the regulatory environment.Specific attention is given to the work of the Committee on Government Regulation and the Cost of Housing of the President's Commission on Housing. The various recommendations of the Commission are set forth, the central one being the enactment of state and local legislation to restrict zoning regulation to that which is necessary to achieve what the Commission terms a “vital and pressing” governmental interest. A number of other specific Commission recommendations are also enumerated including density of development, restrictions on manufactured housing, size of dwelling units, growth controls, farmland preservation, development standards and fees, and local permit processing. The article concludes with a strong statement regarding the need for public education as a prerequisite for reform.