The use of best design practices: An analysis of US navy contractors

Rapid and successful introduction of new products is a potentially significant source of competitive advantage for manufacturing firms. Organizations need to identify and manage those critical elements of the product development process (PDP) that have a positive influence on new product success. This research identifies the distinctive product development and design practices, policies and tools currently followed by companies (Navy contractors) that participated in an empirical research study known as the Best Manufacturing Practices Program. A summary of practices reported in the case studies is compiled using content analysis techniques, and the most interesting practices by individual companies are highlighted. We find numerous examples of sophisticated CAD techniques being used to enhance the development process, including expert system design advisers, computer simulation, and design databases. Companies are emphasizing the design policies of concurrent engineering and teamwork, and documenting design process knowledge into design manuals. Company effort still appear focused primarily on the phase of detailed design rather than the concept selection phase.     

Steering firm performance through innovative capabilities: A contingency approach to innovation management

Today's business environment is filled with fierce competition, rapid technological changes and market uncertainty. For survival, organizations have no option but to embrace innovation both in their processes and product. Performance of innovative capabilities depends on the speed and quality of new product and processes. Contingent resource-based view is used in this study to understand the effect of innovative capabilities on various functional performances. Data was gathered from 115 senior-level managers working in engineering or marketing department of manufacturing firms. PLS-SEM is used for outer and inner measurement model validation. Results of this study reveal that process innovation and product innovation complements each other for improving innovation speed and quality. Moreover, in the case innovative products, manufacturing performance is a key to enhance marketing performance and firm competitive capabilities. This research provides various new insights for the research and development concerns and marketer for developing a successful case of introducing a new product in the market.     

Partnership ecosystem of IC design service companies: The case of Taiwan

The continuously evolving IC industry has driven IC design service companies to become the niche players in the semiconductor value chain. These emerging companies, mostly SMEs, manage the entire chip development manufacturing process and apply third party's resources when and where its customers need them. To keep the customer as their main focus and deliver what the customer truly needs, a strong and committed partnership ecosystem is more important than ever.The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the partnership ecosystem of Taiwan's IC design service companies. A co-evolutionary theory in the business ecosystem is used as a theoretical background to explain the relationship in the investigated partnership networks. The partnership networks of the IC design service companies were analyzed together with the corporate data such as revenues and milestones. The findings show that the firms have accumulated and created their competitive advantage by forming strategic alliances with various leading foundries, IP vendors, and EDA tool providers to leverage their technological capabilities. While the production ecosystem was localized in Taiwan based on the benefit of the complete value chain, the IP ecosystem was more internationalized.The existing networks provide a new insight into opportunities for new entrants even in the highly competitive environment like the semiconductor industry. This study contributes to the understanding of the characteristics of the niche players. It will be useful as policy implications for the industry stakeholders and governments to setup direction for further support and investment in the IC design service business.     

Have Chinese firms learned from their prior technology in-licensing? An analysis based on patent citations

With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in 2010, many Chinese firms have started taking technological lead in the global market. Nevertheless, whether Chinese firms have learned from their prior in-licensing technologies and accumulated technological capabilities in sustaining their economic growth remains underexplored. This paper aims to fill this void. Using a unique dataset containing the information on licensing for 83 large Chinese firms in the electronic sector during 2000–2004, we find that these firms have successfully learned from the international technologies that they previously licensed-in when subsequent patent citations made by these Chinese licensee firms to their licensed patents are used to identify these successful learners.     

Maturing,Technology-Based,Born-Global Companies: Surviving Through Mergers and Acquisitions

To date, there has been little research about the corporate growth of born-global companies and relatively little data exist about their maturation, survival as independent companies (or failure to do so) and their international strategies. The present paper is based on an empirical study of Israeli technology-based companies that were identified in the late 1990s as born global. We collected data about the continuing development of these firms for the decade spanning 2000–2009. Our findings show that maturing technology-based, born-global companies can increase their chances of survival by acquiring other firms. Although such acquisitions do not increase profits, they allow born-global firms to continue increasing their sales and to expand and upgrade their product line, which in turn increases their chances of remaining independent. The data also show that if the firms prefer to merge with another company, they are in a better position if they do not acquire any other firms beforehand. Finally, our data show that although the majority of born-global companies can continue operations if they survived the first decade, they are not highly successful on the measures of growth and shareholder wealth. One of the recommendations of this study is that for maturing, technology-based, born-global companies to remain successful, they must be more aggressive in their M&A strategy than they are at the moment.     

An analytic-hierarchy-process based simulation model for implementation and analysis of computer-aided systems

The many successful implementations of computer-aided systems (CAx) have created major advantages for most companies in the competitive world market. In particular, some companies have implemented these systems in order to keep up their competitive power, as computer applications in various fields of production systems are more widely used than before. Unfortunately, these companies have met some problems in their implementation processes, such as a lack of welleducated personnel, in sufficient management support, wrong implementation strategies and techniques, and so on. In order to overcome these problems, in this paper a systematic structure for the implementation and analysis of CAx systems is presented to eliminate--or at least reduce--these kinds of problems. In addition, some techniques, such as the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), benchmarking and simulation approach are used together to make the implementation and analysis studies more effective, easy and applicable for the companies. The objectives of the research are: first, to use the AHP technique for the evaluation of the hardware and software components for a targeted CAx system, secondly, to use a simulation generator integrated with the AHP in order to try the alternatives that are ranked by the AHP study, on a real-life product organization model of a company, until a model is found that provides the best performance values as determined by the company's management.     

A comparative study of the operations strategies of globally- and domestically-oriented New Zealand manufacturing firms

There has been much written on why and how firms become involved in entering international markets. There is less material on the production/operations actions taken by such firms. This paper investigates the differences in competitive capabilities and manufacturing performance improvement plans between globally-oriented and domestically-oriented firms. It uses data collected from 140 New Zealand manufacturing companies. The results indicate that both groups emphasize the same competitive capabilities, but the globally-oriented group is placing more emphasis on some action plans involving quality assurance, improving existing processes and design for manufacture. Their most favoured action plans are similar to those of firms in most advanced manufacturing countries which participate in the Manufacturing Futures Project.     

Alternative Paths to Competitive Advantage: A Fuzzy-Set Analysis of the Origins of Large Firms

Scholars have documented the importance of national-level factors for the competitive success of firms on a global scale. These studies typically identify multiple factors that are behind the emergence of large and successful firms in particular national clusters. However, there has been relatively little research identifying whether such factors are all collectively necessary to produce the outcome, or whether only a few of the factors in different combinations might be sufficient to generate the shift in competitive advantage manifested in the market power of large “flagship” firms. In this paper, we study the evolution of one industry across six countries in which the competitive position of national firms changed considerably during our 100-year analysis period. The results of our combined historical and fuzzy-set analyses show that an unequal distribution of resources may lead to alternative causal pathways to competitive advantage of the largest firms.     

A Stackelberg-Nash model for new product design

Existing conjoint approaches to optimal new product design have focused on the Nash equilibrium concept to model competitive reactions. Whereas these approaches have treated all competing firms equally as Nash players, one firm may have an advantage over its rivals, e.g., more pre-experience on competitors’ behavior and/or a first-mover advantage. This paper proposes a Stackelberg-Nash (leader-followers) model which can accomodate such information for decision making. The optimal product design problem is formulated from the perspective of a profit-maximizing new entrant (the leader) who wants to launch a brand onto an existing product market and acts with foresight by anticipating price-design reactions of the incumbent firms (the Nash followers). In the absence of closed-form solutions, we use a sequential iterative procedure to compute a Stackelberg-Nash equilibrium and to establish its uniqueness. The new conjoint model is illustrated under several competitive scenarios and price, design and profit implications are compared to a simple Nash equilibrium model. We find that a Stackelberg leader strategy may not only yield a much higher profit for the new entrant than a Nash strategy, but may also lead to strong profit asymmetries between competitors with still higher profits for the incumbent firms. In other words, the incumbent firms may also benefit strongly from a new entrant choosing a Stackelberg leader strategy.     

The Performance of Venture-Backed Firms: The Effect of Venture Capital Company Characteristics

This paper deals with the empirical investigation of the question as to which type of venture capital (VC) companies determines the growth and survival of istics of VC companies as additional factors that explain the high variation of the employment growth rate of portfolio firms and their probability of surviving. Surprisingly, venture- backed firms financed by independent VC companies are not among the most successful firms. Independent VC companies are some of those with the greatest profit orientation and hence, a high quality of the value chain process is to be expected. Significantly higher employment growth rates are evident for firms financed by locally active VCs. Changes in the board of directors do not have a positive effect on firms' performance. Syndicated investment strategy seems to be a successful strategy.     

Enhancing product development through a dynamic information interchange approach

In today's increasingly competitive environment, firms are experiencing growing pressure to reduce the product development lead time to meet market expectations. In this paper, a Responsive Product Development System (RPDS), which is used to model the product development process and the components of the process with object technology, introduces a dynamic product information schema characterized by its ability to provide design practitioners with a product data exchange standard, thus transforming data to information and then knowledge. To validate the feasibility of the proposed schema, a case study has been conducted in a plastic product factory based on the suggested approach. Following feedback from these companies, a further review of the design of the proposed system has been conducted to ensure efficient information flow across the heterogeneous computing environment. A measure of loss to society associated with RPDS in product development time is also included as a system evaluation.     

Strategic Alliances: Lessons from the New Biotechnology Industry

ABSTRACT

Strategic partnerships or strategic alliances have been called the “life blood” of companies in the new biotechnology industry, and a large number of firms are now participating in such collaborations. However, for a variety of reasons, not all such partnerships are successful. This paper describes some initial results from research conducted on a sample of small new biotechnology firms to identify the types and incidences of their strategic alliances, the reasons why they were formed, and the factors that contributed to their success or failure. Based on these preliminary findings, several recommendations are made for facilitating successful alliances in the new biotechnology and other industries.     

Process Uncertainty: A New Dimension for New Product Development

Abstract

Companies pursuing product leadership continually push products into innovative technology areas and new unknown markets. As companies continue to strive for continuous innovation, often leapfrogging even their own technology, new product development (NPD) processes play an increasingly important role in defining the success or failure of many new innovations. In addition, increased competitive rivalry is driving companies to commercialize their new products much more quickly. To meet these pressures, new strategies are being used to supplement the conventional new product development process that consists of strategy formulation, idea generation, screening and evaluation, development, testing, and launch. The primary objective of each of these innovation strategies is to attain sustainable competitive advantage for the company and achieve higher overall performance.

Our research examined product and service innovation strategies of six projects. Half of which were considered successful and the other half failures. Using several emerging innovation strategies including process-driven, speed-to-market, quantitative, market-driven, technology-driven, and learning-driven to classify these projects, we evaluated the innovation strategies employed in an attempt to determine the overall NPD strategy effectiveness. In addition, we also attempted to identify relevant critical success factors and associated activities to construct an ideal innovation strategy model.

In the projects we studied, we found that no one best strategy leads to successful innovation. While evaluating areas of uncertainty that impact project success, we determined that a new dimension, process uncertainty, plays as important a role as market or technical uncertainty previously examined in the emerging scholarship. Furthermore, the insights that were discovered by comparing the different innovation strategies led us to formulate the technical-market-process (TMP) uncertainty mode. The TMP model serves as a predicator for identifying the appropriate innovation strategies that can be brought together to drive project success. We conclude that the combination of identifying the appropriate innovation strategies and proficiently executing these strategies is the key to successful new product development.     

Innovation and growth in KIBS: the role of clients’ collaboration and service customisation

In this paper, we analyse KIBS firms and posit that two core attributes of KIBS, namely collaborative relationships with clients and product customisation, foster the ability to develop successful, new product innovations. We disentangle the role of customisation and collaboration choices by looking at how they jointly affect the impact of innovation over firms’ performance, asking to what extent and how firms should collaborate with clients and customise their services. We test our hypotheses on a sample of Italian KIBS firms. Our results show that product innovations that are new to the industry are relevant and, counter intuitively, show that most growing KIBS firms do not have the highest service customisation and collaboration breadth with their clients. Most growing firms develop mass customisation strategies and they leverage on focused collaboration strategies with clients.     

The designer as ‘gatekeeper’ in manufacturing industry

For the past three years the Design Innovation Group at the Open University in collaboration with Vivien Walsh at UMIST has been examining the processes, practices and management of product design, development and innovation in several sectors of manufacturing industry.This paper presents some of the findings, in particular from the survey of the plastics products sector, but with additional evidence from a preliminary analysis of data in the office furniture, domestic heating equipment and electronic business equipment industries.The focus of the paper is on the employment and activities of product designers and their role as ‘gatekeepers’, who, in the commercially successful, ‘design-conscious’ firms, manage to integrate the contributions of marketing, design and production in new product development.The paper also includes some evidence on the relationship between ‘good design’ and business performance.     

Technological catch-up in the biopharmaceutical sector: Evidence from Iran

This paper addresses the market and technological capabilities required for technological catch-up in the biopharmaceutical sector using a multi-case study method. The paper reveals that the firms that are catching up in biopharmaceuticals first developed their production capabilities (including API production, formulation and obtaining health approvals), then entered the process innovation. Iranian companies have locally re-produced existing products in the market in exact accordance with global standards, and then entered into the introduction of new strains by intensifying their R&D efforts. The paper observes that the existence of strong R&D efforts from the early stages is a prerequisite for technological growth. It also argues that assimilated migratory knowledge can not only complement indigenous efforts, but also stimulate further technological capability-building efforts by local firms. The paper shows that technological development in the Iranian biopharmaceutical industry was firstly geared towards the home market, which we refer to as the ‘test-bed’, before entering into international markets. A key strategic point here is that, despite the maximum use of domestic market capacity, our study considers it necessary to try to enter international markets. Therefore, presence in these markets and the development of capabilities in the biopharmaceutical industry are two blades of a pair of scissors.     

Taxonomy of information technology strategy and its impact on the performance of third-party logistics (3PL) in China

This paper develops a taxonomy of information technology strategies used by third-party logistics (3PL) firms in China based on a cluster analysis of survey data from 105 of these 3PL firms. The information technology strategies have been classified into three major groups: supportive, technological, and aligned. The paper also investigates the effect of information technology strategies on information technology advantage, competitive advantage, and financial performance. The results of the study indicate that efforts to improve information technology systems can only be effective if the information technology improvements are properly aligned with a company's overall strategy. It is found that companies that attempt to improve their information technology systems without the proper alignment of information technology with the company's overall strategy can achieve information technology advantages relative to their competitors, but not competitive advantages or improved financial performance. This study is the first attempt to develop an information technology strategy taxonomy for 3PL companies in China. It provides valuable guidance and insights for managers in the development of information technology strategies in 3PL companies.     

An AHP-multicriteria suitability evaluation of technological diversification in the automotive industry

This paper advances a methodological framework for analysing the process of technological diversification in the automotive industry and presents a multicriteria procedure, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), to evaluate, in a simple and user-friendly manner, the suitability of technological diversification for any company in the automotive sector. The AHP-multicriteria procedure associated with the initial stage of the methodology and the decision support systems developed to evaluate suitability have been applied to 22 Spanish automotive companies. The multicriteria procedure classifies the companies into three different groups: (i) those that are suitable for diversification; (ii) those for which product development (innovation) or market development (internationalisation) is more appropriate; (iii) those that are not suitable for any diversification process. The true value added in this initial stage of the technological diversification process is not, despite its importance, the final classification of the firms, but the learning procedure derived from the multicriteria analysis and the evaluation of diversification suitability. From this learning procedure, a set of recommendations related to the diversification of the automotive companies is extracted.     

Towards a contingency theory of collaborative planning initiatives in supply networks

In recent years there has been increased interest in supply chain (SC) collaboration, as a process that promotes inter-company co-operation in different business areas. This paper focuses on collaborative planning initiatives adopted to support demand and supply planning in supply networks. Since companies implement several different forms of collaborative planning initiatives, this paper intends to examine the relevant contingency effects that lead firms to choose a precise collaborative planning initiative. Ten cases were analysed to investigate the research question. Results found indicate that specific contextual conditions – i.e. goals of the collaboration, demand elasticity, product diversity and supply network spatial complexity – can affect the level of the collaboration in collaborative planning initiatives. Three different levels of collaboration are identified (i.e. communication, limited collaboration and full collaboration) – depending on the level of integration (i.e. whether companies simply exchange data/information, or synchronise and jointly decide their plans) and multiplexity (i.e. the number of business areas involved in the collaboration). It emerges that, while the goals of the collaboration influence the level of integration between companies; the elasticity of demand can determine the level of multiplexity. Furthermore, the research found that product diversity (i.e. whether companies sell different products) and a high supply network spatial complexity could limit the level of multiplexity in the collaboration.     

Relating TQM,marketing and business performance: An exploratory study

Total Quality Management (TQM) is perhaps the leading management approach that companies employ to improve their product and service quality with the aim of improving typical measures of business performance (e.g. increased profits, increased market share, reduced costs). However, consumer perception of quality not only results from an evaluation of the intrinsic quality attributes of the product (e.g. performance, reliability, durability) but is also affected by the marketing mix (e.g. price, advertising, warranties) adopted by the company selling the product. This paper offers a first attempt at cross-functional fertilization by examining the relationships between TQM, some marketing mix variables and measures of company performance by exploring the diverse multidisciplinary literature and developing an explanatory framework, which is tested using non-parametric correlation and refined through an empirical study of Spanish manufacturing companies. The results show that the most important TQM dimensions are the system of employee relations and the use of quality management-related design tools. The results also indicate the existence of a relationship amongst price, advertising and warranties, but that these marketing variables were not related to TQM and that further research is required to include a wider definition of marketing strategy.