A Consumer-Centric Open Innovation Framework for Food and Packaging Manufacturing

This article has been archived following written permission from IGI Global.Closed innovation approaches have been employed for many years in the food industry. But, this sector recently perceives its end-user to be wary of radically new products and changes in consumption patterns. However, new product development involves not only the product itself but also the entire manufacturing and distribution network. In this paper, we present a new ICT based framework that embraces open innovation to place customers in the product development loop but at the same time assesses and eventually coordinates the entire manufacturing and supply chain. The aim is to design new food products that consumers will buy and at the same time ensure that these products will reach the consumer in time and at adequate quantity. On the product development side, our framework enables new food products that offer an integrated sensory experience of food and packaging, which encompass customization, healthy eating, and sustainability

Interval-valued sensory evaluation for customized beverage product formulation and continuous manufacturing

Understanding of consumer preferences and perceptions is a vital challenge for the food and beverage industry. Food and beverage product development is a very complex process that deals with highly uncertain factors, including consumer perceptions and manufacturing complexity. Sensory evaluation is widely used in the food industry for product design and defining market segments. Here, we develop a two-step approach to minimize uncertainty in the food and beverage product development, including consumers as co-creators. First, we develop interval-valued questionnaires to capture sensory perceptions of consumers for the corresponding sensory attributes. The data captured is modelled with fuzzy sets in order to then facilitate the design of new consumer-tailored products. Then, we demonstrate the real-world manufacture of a personalized beverage product with a continuous food formulation system. Finally, we highlight consumers` perceptions for the corresponding sensory attributes and their fuzzy set generated agreement models to capture product acceptance for the formulated and commercial orange juice drinks, and consequently to establish that continuous beverage formulator is capable of making similar commercial products for individuals

Consumer driven new product development in future re-distributed models of sustainable production and consumption

The customer as co-creator of products is a grand challenge the entire consumer products manufacturing industry is facing. The design, manufacture and delivery of mass personalised consumer products must not only meet customer preferences but must be produced economically and sustainably too. Re-Distributed Manufacturing (RDM) has the potential to disrupt the way products are designed, produced and consumed products across their entire lifecycle and will allow the creation of disruptive business models and entirely new supply chain structures. New structures of design and manufacturing can enable large reductions in resource consumption by limiting waste in a supply chain (e.g. reducing transport distances) and through addressing the flows of resources at critical times in the lifecycle of products. It can also enable reduction of R&D waste by enabling a more targeted delivery of custom products to meet specific user needs and demands in different contexts and across extended timespans of the product lifecycle. Few manufacturers have started experimenting with open innovation to address the two manufacturing challenges of: (i) the ability to identify rapidly the needs and preferences of different market segments; (ii) the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to those. This paper demonstrates a model-based methodology and information technology to engage consumers at large scales to drive new product and manufacturing process development to address these challenges. An orange beverage has been selected to show that by linking a game-like consumer facing web application and a novel computer driven flow manufacturing system, target sensory attributes obtained by consumer groups can be rapidly translated into a new formulation recipe and its manufacturing process of a beverage that meets those needs and prototyped for that consumer group to evaluate. One can then envisage future scenarios where formulated consumer products are rapidly co-created and produced serving the needs of localised markets

Consumer driven new product development in future re-distributed models of sustainable production and consumption

The customer as co-creator of products is a grand challenge the entire consumer products manufacturing industry is facing. The design, manufacture and delivery of mass personalised consumer products must not only meet customer preferences but must be produced economically and sustainably too. Re-Distributed Manufacturing (RDM) has the potential to disrupt the way products are designed, produced and consumed products across their entire lifecycle and will allow the creation of disruptive business models and entirely new supply chain structures. New structures of design and manufacturing can enable large reductions in resource consumption by limiting waste in a supply chain (e.g. reducing transport distances) and through addressing the flows of resources at critical times in the lifecycle of products. It can also enable reduction of R&D waste by enabling a more targeted delivery of custom products to meet specific user needs and demands in different contexts and across extended timespans of the product lifecycle. Few manufacturers have started experimenting with open innovation to address the two manufacturing challenges of: (i) the ability to identify rapidly the needs and preferences of different market segments; (ii) the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to those. This paper demonstrates a model-based methodology and information technology to engage consumers at large scales to drive new product and manufacturing process development to address these challenges. An orange beverage has been selected to show that by linking a game-like consumer facing web application and a novel computer driven flow manufacturing system, target sensory attributes obtained by consumer groups can be rapidly translated into a new formulation recipe and its manufacturing process of a beverage that meets those needs and prototyped for that consumer group to evaluate. One can then envisage future scenarios where formulated consumer products are rapidly co-created and produced serving the needs of localised markets

A Development of Computer Aided Program for Aluminium Die-Casting Mold Design

In each stage of design, aluminium die-casting mold design is considerate many factors and conditions. The design requires some experiences with trial-and-error platform that causes the problems such as misrun, cold shut, cold shot, penetrations or instability stage during or after molding process.  Proposed in this research is about the development of Computer Aided Program to support aluminium die-casting mold design to select and estimate the initial state values under the same standard condition requirements. Before starting a mold design, the C# language is asked to construct the platform that soothes and is insightful or applicably useful in a content database of reference theory, equations and principles including mold parameters. After identifying the proper input conditions of the mold design, the analysis of die casting MAGMASOFT is performed to verify the conditions of the material flow according to the suggested parameters. The simulated results can be considered as the guideline for supporting mold designer where the essential values of mold dimensions and the cold chamber type injection conditions are obtained as easy-to-access graphical images and numerical values. Applying this developed program can help to reduce time spent for mold designing stage with less defects occurred on the obtained cast parts

Managing the challenges of today’s economic landscape

This volume combines twelve chapters written by fifteen academics from four countries namely Germany, Italy, Thailand, and Turkey. They are mainly based upon the outputs of the WIBF’s annual International Business Conferences. With this regard, we thank all participants for their contributions to the discussions, the referees for their time and energy, and the chapter authors in this volume for their willingness and expertise.Managing the Challenges of Today’s Economic Landscape / Emin Akçaoğlu and Rainer Wehner -- Digitizing the Sales Process of SMEs: Development Tendencies and Relevant Technologies / Heiko Fischer, Thomas Berger and Sven Seidenstricker -- The Impact of Sustainability on Innovation in the Apparel Industry / Laura Schmiedle -- The Role of Savings Cooperatives as Financial Institutions to Provide Funds to SMEs in Thailand / Anucha Wittayakorn-Puripunpinyoo -- Do Management Accountants Need to Consider Gender in Supporting Decision-Making? / Björn Baltzer -- Economic Aspects as the Fundament of Commercial Law An Outline Based on Warranty Claims within a Supply Chain / Artur R. Fabisch -- Environmental Taxes and Sustainability in the European Union: Cases of Germany and Ireland / Rainer Wehner and Emin Akçaoğlu -- Innovation Formula and Innovation Test Bed: Development of an Instrument to Determine the Innovation Status in the Present / Gerhard Hube -- Cross Cultural Comparative Study of Sustainability Awareness in European Education: Cases of Italy, Germany Romania / Elia Francesca Pacelli -- Open Innovation Paradigm as Sustainability Booster in Supply Chains / Sabrina Salsano -- Green Finance for Sustainability: Practices by Turkish Banks / Yağmur Rençber and Halit Targan Ünal -- Developing Multicultural Leaders for International Entrepreneurship: An Examination of Effective Leadership Styles / Jessica Mante