ROBUST PRODUCT DESIGN – INFLUENCING FACTORS ON UPGRADEABLE MODULAR PRODUCTS

In today\u27s VUCA-World it is necessary to consider future requirements to develop change- and future-robust future products, especially regarding the increasing demand for sustainable solutions. In order to address this situation, upgradeability of modular products can be a solution. Considering that elements of modular products are used in several different products and over a long period of time, there is a need to act on this challenge. To uncover areas with a need for action, a systematic literature review on upgradeable and modular products was conducted. After resolving four fields of action and under consideration of the need for sustainable products, another systematic literature review examined the solution space of upgradable modular product architecture. In conclusion, several influencing factors on the upgradeable design of modular products could be identified, which are presented in this work

Technology Frustration and Consumer Valuation Shift for Mobile Apps: An Exploratory Study

Consumer evaluation of products in a market is a predictor of the success or failure of a product. For digital products, the usage of a product is determined by the technology robustness associated with the design of the product. Bad designs, implementation and integration issues lead to frustration on the part of consumers using the product. In this study, we explore how technology frustration negatively influences the valuation of a product in digital markets. Furthermore, we hypothesize that market externalities, such as consumer passion for, and sustenance of, the product in question temper this negative effect. Finally, we contend that the negative effect of technology frustration is high for new and high priced products because of the higher expectations and hence more stringent evaluations for new and high priced products by consumers. We conducted empirical analysis and found support for our hypotheses. Managerial and research contributions are discussed

Bimby case : time to market innovation on premium products

Thermomix, or Bimby in Portugal, is the kitchen robot’s market leader that became a generic brand, confounding itself as a product category. With the unstoppable changes on the technology market which constantly demand novelties, Thermomix is studied as an example of a brand that doesn’t want to fall behind. Aware its’ products stand in a particular situation, the German firm’s goal is finding the optimal time to market innovation on their premium product. To answer such quest, primary and secondary research methods contribute to a time interval proposal for product innovation and other complementing findings. Leading to such proposal, concepts such as innovation, premium products, the importance of market research and defined positioning gain special prominence. Major findings indicate consumers give strong importance to innovation and most expect premium brands to launch product updates every year. When it comes specifically to Bimby, expectations are less ambitious and further away from life changing innovation once consumers prefer incremental to radical changes. It was also noticed that recognition of products as premium or non-premium doesn’t affect more impulsive consumers on the speed to purchase. As the major conclusion, the most realistic time interval advises firms to launch premium products from two to five years.Thermomix, ou Bimby em Portugal, é o robot de cozinha líder de mercado que se tornou numa marca genérica, confundindo-se com a categoria de produto. Com as exigências provenientes das incessantes mudanças no mercado da tecnologia, a Thermomix é estudada enquanto marca que não quer ficar para trás. Consciente de que o seu produto se encontra numa situação particular, a empresa Alemã procura saber qual o tempo óptimo para comercializar inovação nos seus produtos premium. Para responder a tal demanda, métodos de investigação primários e secundários contribuíram para a proposta de um intervalo de tempo óptimo para inovações de produto, bem como conclusões adicionais. Conduzindo às respostas desejadas, conceitos como inovação, produtos premium, a importância da pesquisa de mercado e da definição de posicionamento ganham especial protagonismo. Os principais resultados indicam que os consumidores atribuem grande importância à inovação e esperam que marcas premium lancem updates de produto anualmente. Em relação à Bimby especificamente, tais expectativas são menos frequentes e mais longe de alterações profundas à rotina, uma vez que os consumidores preferem alterações incrementais a radicais. Notou-se também que o reconhecimento de produtos como premium ou não-premium não afecta consumidores mais impulsivos no que toca à velocidade de aquisição. A maior conclusão indica que o intervalo de tempo mais realista para lançar produtos premium é entre dois e cinco anos

Property as the Law of Virtual Things

Property law in the twentieth century moved from the law of things to the law of rights in things. This was a process of fragmentation: Under Hohfeldian property, we conceive of property as a bundle of sticks, and those sticks can be moved to different holders; the right to possess can be separated from the record ownership right, for example. The downside of Hohfeld\u27s model is that physical objects—things—become informationally complicated. Thing-ness constrains the extravagances of Hohfeldian property: although we can split off the right to possess from the right to exclude, use, destroy, copy, manage, repair, and so on, there is a gravitational pull to tie these sticks back into a useful bundle centered on the asset, the thing. Correspondingly, there has been an “informational turn” to property law, looking at the ways in which property law serves to limit property forms to reduce search costs, and to identify and celebrate the informational characteristics of thing-ness. The question of thing-ness came to a head in the context of digital and smart assets with the formation of non-fungible tokens. NFTs were attempts to generate and sell “things,” a conceptually coherent something that can contain a loose bundle of rights. The project was an attempt to re-create thing-ness by an amalgam of cryptography, game theory, and intellectual property. This essay discusses thing-ness in the context of digital assets, how simulated thing-ness differs from physical thing-ness, and the problems that arise from attempts to reify digital assets

Integrated Acceptance Model for On-demand Car Functions: exploring determinants of drivers' acceptance

This research paper investigates the factors influencing drivers' acceptance of on-demand car functions (ODCFs) and proposes an integrated acceptance model specific to the ODCFs context. While limited marketing research has explored consumer responses to ODCFs, understanding the determinants of consumers' intention to accept ODCFs is crucial. Existing acceptance models, although effective in explaining variances in consumer behavior, need to be adapted and extended to enhance explanatory power in individual contexts. To address this gap, a comprehensive literature review on ODCFs and related domains was conducted, identifying 74 acceptance factors. Drawing upon the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the Car Technology Acceptance Model (CTAM), and the identified factors, a multi-level acceptance model tailored to the ODCFs context was developed. At the meso-level, the baseline model incorporates factors such as exposure to ODCFs, domain-specific, symbolic-affective, and moral-normative factors. The micro-level pertains to distinct individual variance components, encompassing socio-demographic attributes, travel behavioral patterns, personality dispositions, and technological inclinations. These micro-level determinants exert a discernible influence on the factors situated at the meso-level of analysis. A partial model that considers cross-level influences and advocates for multi-level research to examine the contextual factors' impacts on acceptance empirically is proposed to operationalize the model. By adopting this approach, researchers can gain deeper insights into the acceptance of ODCFs and shed light on the mechanisms underlying consumer behavior in this specific context

Research on cost management methods used in new product development and their relationship to strategic priorities and collaborative competences: A systematic literature review and survey of the German manufacturing industry

This doctoral thesis presents a systematic review in both the management accounting as well as the innovation and operation management literature on 15 different methods for cost management. Subsequently, six antecedents of the adoption of cost management methods are identified and empirically analysed. It was found that the antecedents explaining the adoption of this methods during NPD are cost leadership

Primary and secondary market strategies for regulatory compliance and profit

Incorporating sustainability into operational strategies has gained tremendous momentum among firms. An important driver is the need to comply with environmental legislation that grows in both coverage and stringency. Moreover, many firms also come to recognize the value of establishing sustainable operations to enhance profitability, especially with its potential to be scaled up by the rapidly increasing volume of production and end-of-life products. In this dissertation, I study firms' sustainable operational strategies either for complying with legislation or for improving profitability. In the first essay (Chapter II), I point out that, although largely overlooked by the literature, increasing product durability can be utilized, in addition to recyclability, as a design lever when a durable product producer is imposed with the responsibility of end-of-life product management. The analysis reveals that when trade-off between the two design options exists, legislation can lead to surprising design outcomes. The second essay (Chapter III) studies the strategies of Testing and Remanufacturing as instruments for a durable product manufacturer to tackle the lemons problem. The lemons problem arises in secondary markets as the sellers, being the original owners of the used products, take advantage of the superior quality information to strategically sell the low-quality items to the secondary markets while keeping the high-quality ones. This study reveals the unexplored functionalities of conducting testing and remanufacturing in resolving the lemons problem, which take effects through enabling the manufacturer a stronger control over the secondary markets. The third essay (Chapter IV) builds upon these insights and proposes a framework to empirically study the effectiveness of the Testing and Remanufacturing strategies in dealing with the lemons problem in the used automobile markets.Ph.D

Market Transformation for Value-Retention Processes as a Strategy for Circular Economy

There is increasing global interest in the application of circular economy as a tool for enabling the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. Despite this growing interest, there is a lack of in-depth insight about the quantified potential benefits that value-retention processes (VRPs) – direct reuse, repair, refurbishment and remanufacturing – can contribute to circular economy and improved resource efficiency. In this assessment, product-level production impacts are bridged with economy-level insights about market, regulatory, technological and infrastructure conditions, to demonstrate and quantify the essential role of value-retention processes within circular economies. Three representative products were selected from each of three industrial sectors known to engage in VRPs (Industrial digital printers, vehicle parts, and heavy-duty and off-road equipment), and select environmental and economic impacts were assessed at the material- and product-levels. Results indicate that, where appropriately employed, the adoption of VRPs can lead to significant reduction of negative environmental impact and positive economic opportunity at the product- and process-levels. Further, these insights were assessed in the context of diverse sample industrial economies around the world (Brazil, China, Germany, and United States of America) to better understand the significance of varied systemic conditions and barriers to VRPs in the realization of circular economy objectives. In aggregate, this work highlights the need for policy-makers and decision-makers to incorporate systems-perspectives and integrated environmental and technology policy approaches into their circular economy strategies. Industry must embrace a product-system design approach that considers both forward- and reverse-logistics, as well as a new value-proposition based in maximized customer utility, multiple product service lives, and results-oriented business models. In parallel, governments of both industrialized and non-industrialized economies must look for opportunities to further enable, enhance, optimize, and improve the efficiency of accepted value-retention practices if they are to optimize their potential for value-retention and the pursuit of circular economy

Modularização no desenvolvimento de produtos sustentáveis

A estratégia de modularidade no desenvolvimento de produtos tem como propósito geração de variedade, economia de escala, redução do tempo de montagem e produção, flexibilidade na reutilização de componentes e facilidade de montagem e desmontagem. Recentemente, os benefícios relacionados à diminuição do impacto ambiental dos produtos tornaram a modularidade uma estratégia associada ao design sustentável, principalmente devido à capacidade para estender a vida útil do produto e facilitar a sua desmontagem para a recuperação de valor no final do ciclo de vida. Estudos realizados para demonstrar o efeito da modularidade em projetos sustentáveis são focados na arquitetura do produto, sem considerar o contexto de utilização dos produtos. Para contribuir com essa questão, o objetivo geral desta tese é analisar a realização dos benefícios da modularidade considerando sustentabilidade em todo o ciclo de vida do produto. Para atingir este objetivo, inicialmente foram identificados estudos publicados na literatura relacionando modularidade e design sustentável. Essa revisão possibilitou identificar quais os benefícios da modularidade visando sustentabilidade, e também lacunas de pesquisa, entre elas a influência dos usuários no ciclo de vida dos produtos e na realização desses benefícios. Na sequência, analisou-se o papel dos usuários e demais stakeholders na realização dos benefícios propiciados pela modularidade nas fases de uso e descarte de produtos eletrônicos, exemplificados pelo reparo e pela destinação dada aos produtos ao final do ciclo de vida. Como principal resultado, conclui-se que as mudanças projetadas na arquitetura do produto visando sustentabilidade são importantes, mas não garantem a sustentabilidade, sendo essencial planejar um sistema que possibilite e incentive a realização dos benefícios planejados no desenvolvimento do produto. Essa visão sistêmica de design sustentável contempla a adoção de modelos de negócio visando sustentabilidade em conjunto com uma arquitetura de produto modular; e a importância de conscientizar e incentivar os stakeholders críticos, principalmente os usuários, para que realizem os benefícios que a modularidade pode proporcionar ao longo do ciclo de vida dos produtos.Modularity in product development can be aimed at the generation of variety, economy of scale, reduction of assembly and production times, flexibility in the reuse of components and ease of assembly and disassembly. Recently, the benefits associated with reducing the environmental impact of products have made modularity a strategy associated with sustainable design, mainly due to its ability to extend the product lifespan and facilitate disassembly for value recovery at the end of the life cycle. Studies to demonstrate the effect of modularity on sustainable projects are focused on product architecture, without considering the use context of the product. To contribute to this discussion, the general objective of this thesis is to analyze the realization of the benefits of modularity aiming for sustainability in the whole product life cycle. To reach this objective, we initially identified studies relating modularity and sustainable design in the literature. This review allowed to identify the benefits of modularity for sustainability, as well as research gaps, including the influence of users on the product life cycle and the fulfillment of these benefits. Next, we analyze the role of the users and other stakeholders in the fulfillment of the benefits offered by modularity in the phases of use and disposal of electronic products, exemplified by the repair and the destination given to products at the end of their life cycle. As a result, we conclude that changes in product architecture aiming for sustainability are important, but do not guarantee sustainability: a system that enables and encourages the realization of the benefits planned during product development needs to be designed. This systemic vision of sustainable design contemplates the adoption of business models aimed at sustainability in conjunction with a modular product architecture; and the importance of raising awareness and encouraging stakeholders, especially users, to realize the benefits that modularity can deliver throughout the product life cycle