Creating Products in the Absence of Markets: A Robust Design Approach

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine how firms deal with a situation of true uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies. Specifically, we ask how firms can create products when the corresponding market does not exist. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a longitudinal study of a high-tech firm, combined with analysis of existing theory in Product Design and Entrepreneurship. Findings – Markets and products are usually a defining choice made early on by firms in their strategic process. Such a choice guides their development by providing a ‘stable concept' to which decisions can be related to. When markets do not exist yet, however, this approach is not effective: Early choice of products and markets limits firms' flexibility by constraining their ability and willingness to adapt, while fundamental new technical and market information is likely to emerge during the project that will prove the initial assumptions wrong. We show an alternative approach where products and markets actually result from a generic process of products and markets exploration driven by the firm. We suggest that this approach forms a robust design in that it allows the firm to deal with the uncertainty by simultaneously developing its products and exploring markets, while preserving the flexibility to adapt to the changing environment. Practical implications – The practical implication of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach to deliberate planning in high-tech ventures. With this approach, rather than markets and products, strategy defines a market and technology exploration process. Originality/value – The paper is original in three ways: 1) It links the product design and market exploration processes in high-tech firm development; 2) It is based on an in-depth longitudinal study; and 3) It results from an academic-practitioner collaborative work.New Product Development; uncertainty; high-technology venture.

Group technology: amalgamation with design of organisational structures

Group technology has been studied extensively from an ‘industrial engineering’ perspective (layout, scheduling, workflow, etc.), but less often from an organisational design viewpoint. To study this implication of group technology, the approach of applied systems theory for the design of organisational structures was used as framework for analysis in three empirical cases. To increase the reliability of findings from the analysis of these three empirical cases, five more cases were drawn from archival search. Cluster analysis and product flow analysis were the methods used for forming groups of machines and employees in manufacturing cells, whereas the coding of parts was not employed to this end. Furthermore, the results indicate that the implementation of group technology generally meets shifts in performance requirements caused by competitive pressures, particularly flexibility and responsiveness, albeit the companies considered group technology only when under pressure of ‘poor’ business performance. However, group technology is not always a solution to challenges that companies experience; one empirical case shows that defunctionalisation and scheduling with virtual groups was more beneficial. Nevertheless, when the introduction of group technology is feasible, it also allows firms to consider delegating responsibility for production planning and scheduling to lower levels in the hierarchy and semi-autonomous groups as an alternative to ‘complex’ software applications (a socio-technical approach). Whereas the current study sheds light on the relationship between group technology and design of organisational structures, further research is necessary into the design of these structures and their relationship to group technology

Learning 21st century science in context with mobile technologies

The paper describes a project to support personal inquiry learning with handheld and desktop technology between formal and informal settings. It presents a trial of the technology and learning across a school classroom, sports hall, and library. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract initial recommendations for the design of mobile technology to link inquiry learning across different contexts. A critical incident analysis was carried out to identify learning breakdowns and breakthroughs that led to design implications. The main findings are the opportunities that a combination of mobile and fixed technology bring to: manage the formation of groups, display live visualisations of student and teacher data on a shared screen to facilitate motivation and personal relevance, incorporate broader technical support, provide context-specific guidance on the sequence, reasons and aims of learning activities, offer opportunities to micro-sites for reflection and learning in the field, to explicitly support appropriation of data within inquiry and show the relation between specific activities and the general inquiry process

Design Implications for Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in Live Music

Mobile and sensor-based technologies have created new interaction design possibilities for technology-mediated au- dience participation in live music performance. However, there is little if any work in the literature that systematically identifies and characterises design issues emerging from this novel class of multi-dimensional interactive performance systems. As an early contribution towards addressing this gap in knowledge, we present the analysis of a detailed sur- vey of technology-mediated audience participation in live music, from the perspective of two key stakeholder groups - musicians and audiences. Results from the survey of over two hundred spectators and musicians are presented, along with descriptive analysis and discussion. These results are used to identify emerging design issues, such as expressive- ness, communication and appropriateness. Implications for interaction design are considered. While this study focuses on musicians and audiences, lessons are noted for diverse stakeholders, including composers, performers, interaction designers, media artists and engineers

The natural history of bugs: using formal methods to analyse software related failures in space missions

Space missions force engineers to make complex trade-offs between many different constraints including cost, mass, power, functionality and reliability. These constraints create a continual need to innovate. Many advances rely upon software, for instance to control and monitor the next generation ‘electron cyclotron resonance’ ion-drives for deep space missions.Programmers face numerous challenges. It is extremely difficult to conduct valid ground-based tests for the code used in space missions. Abstract models and simulations of satellites can be misleading. These issues are compounded by the use of ‘band-aid’ software to fix design mistakes and compromises in other aspects of space systems engineering. Programmers must often re-code missions in flight. This introduces considerable risks. It should, therefore, not be a surprise that so many space missions fail to achieve their objectives. The costs of failure are considerable. Small launch vehicles, such as the U.S. Pegasus system, cost around $18 million. Payloads range from$4 million up to $1 billion for security related satellites. These costs do not include consequent business losses. In 2005, Intelsat wrote off$73 million from the failure of a single uninsured satellite. It is clearly important that we learn as much as possible from those failures that do occur. The following pages examine the roles that formal methods might play in the analysis of software failures in space missions

Performance of Build-operate-Transfer Projects: Risks' cost implications from professionals and concessionaires perspective

Determining cost implication of risk factors on performance of Build Operate Transfer (BOT) projects is a major focus of this study. One-hundred and seventeen structured questionnaires were used to collect information randomly from the respondents which made up of professionals such as Builder, Architect, Quantity surveyor and Civil engineer. Content analysis was carried out on the responses for validation; data were further analyzed with Mean Item Score using Risk Mean Index and validated with regression analysis. Meanwhile, the most common risk to all the projects executed are inflation, variation to works, change in government policy and fluctuating nature of foreign exchange with inflation being the highest on rating scale of 0.1 to 1.0 with corresponding cost implications and years. Against the background of the research outcome therefore, cost and time is used in this context as a model typifying the extent of risk implication experienced on the projects

The implication of rapid technologies on the design process

This dissertation focuses on the challenges of design and additive manufacturing (AM). It considers the challenges that such a freeform manufacturing process can have on design freedom. Much of the current literature is focused on this design freedom only as a positive, and work to improve design-for-AM, and how to better exploit the technology. On the contrary, this work looks at how that design freedom can be a challenge if and when a move from AM to a more conventional process is needed. The work is broken into three studies related to the implication of rapid technologies on the design process. Firstly, a user study to examine the effect of AM on design fixation was implemented using two groups, a Design for Conventional Manufacturing (DFCM) group and a Design for Additive Manufacturing group (DFAM). It was found that designers who trained on AM knowledge (DFAM group) experienced a design fixation on non-producible features and produced harder to conventionally manufacture designs, even when asked to modify designs for conventional manufacturing. This brings to light the negative effect of AM knowledge on designers and necessitates treatment methods. Therefore, the second part of this work focused on treating the negative effects of AM knowledge on designer skills. Mainly, a user study investigated the use of Design for Manufacturing (DFM)-based software in mitigating design fixation on non-producible features. The 3D feedback of the DFM software helped to reduce design fixation on non-producible features and improved the machinability of modified designs. The DFM feedback helped designers by highlighting areas in the design that could have machinability problems, however, it did not provide designers with a suggestion on how to modify and migrate their designs from AM to Conventional processes. Thus, the third part of this dissertation proposed a method that can provide a designer with suggestions to modify a design and allow its migration from AM to conventional processes. The method determines best cut lines for dissecting a design into pieces such that the surfaces of problematic features become more machinable. The method was tested, and results showed that the method can dissect a design into components that have better machinability on average than the original design. Overall, this work suggests the use DFM software and a dissection method for treating the design fixation related to AM and for facilitating the migration of designs from additive to conventional manufacturing. This work could be applied to manufacturing industries, particularly for AM parts that are slated for mass production which will require migration to conventional methods

Identifying barriers in telesurgery by studying current team practices in robot-assisted surgery

This paper investigates challenges in current practices in robot-assisted surgery. In addition, by using the method of proxy technology assessment, we provide insights into the current barriers to wider application of robot-assisted telesurgery, where the surgeon and console are physically remote from the patient and operating team. Research in this field has focused on the financial and technological constraints that limit such application; less has been done to clarify the complex dynamics of an operating team that traditionally works in close symbiosis. Results suggest that there are implications for working practices in transitioning from traditional robot-assisted surgery to remote robotic surgery that need to be addressed, such as possible communication problems which might have a negative impact on patient outcomes