New Product Development Process for Parts Business : From New Product Idea to Market Launch

Varaosamyynti on tärkeä liiketoiminnan osa-alue teknologiayrityksille. Varaosat turvaavat laitteen käyttövarmuutta ja niillä voidaan päivittää uusia ominaisuuksia vanhoihin laitteisiin. Hinnan ja toimitusaikojen lisäksi tuoteinnovaatiot ovat tärkeitä kilpailutekijöitä teknologiateollisuudessa. Teknologiajohtajuuden kannalta on tärkeää, että yritys jatkuvasti kehittää tuotteittaan, ja sen lisäksi tuo markkinoille uusia innovaatioita. Uusien tuotteiden kehittämiseen viittaa englanninkielinen termi New Product Development, joka käsittää tuotteen kehittämisen tuoteideasta markkinajulkaisuun. Uusien tuotteiden kehittämisessä avaintekijät ovat selkeä tuotekehitysprosessi, dynaaminen tuotekehitystiimi, sekä asiakastarpeiden ymmärtäminen. Tämä tutkielma on tapaustutkimus, jossa kohdeorganisaationa on Konecranes Port Servicen varaosayksikkö. Tutkimuksen empiirisessä osiossa käytetään sekä laadullista että määrällistä dataa. Kohdeorganisaatio myy satamanosturien varaosia ja kehittää jatkuvasti tuoteportfolioon uusia varaosatuotteitta ja -paketteja. Kohdeorganisaation käyttöön on esitelty yleinen Stage-Gate tuotekehitys prosessi tätä varten. Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää, miten nykyistä prosessia voisi kehittää entistä sopivammaksi varaosaliiketoimintaan ja täsmentää vastuualueet sekä työtehtävät prosessin eri vaiheiden sisällä. Kehitysideat kerätään laadullisella tutkimusmenetelmällä haastattelemalla tuotekehityksen parissa työskenteleviä henkilöitä kohdeorganisaatiosta. Lisäksi selvitetään määrällisen datan avulla aiempien tuotekehitysprojektien läpimenoaikoja sekä prosessin pullonkaulavaihe. Tutkimuksen perusteella aiempien tuotekehitysprojektien läpimenoaika on ollut noin vuosi, vaihdellen projektin suuruudesta. Prosessin pullonkaulaksi löydettiin tekninen kehitysvaihe, joka keskimäärin kesti 192 päivää. Tutkielman jatkotutkimusideana on selvittää, miten tätä vaihetta voidaan nopeuttaa. Nykyiseen prosessiin saatiin useita kehitysideoita haastattelujen perusteella ja esitelty prosessi vastuualueineen esitellään työn lopussa.Spare part sales is an important business for engineering-driven companies. Spare parts ensure the equipment operation security and old new features can be updated to machines by spare part packages. In addition to price and delivery times, product innovations are important competitive factors in the technology industry. From the point of view of technological leadership, it is important that the company constantly develops its products, and in addition brings new innovations to the market. New product development refers to the development of new products starting from market opportunity identification until the new product is launched to the market including the post launch-review. The factors in successful new product development are well-defined process, dynamic cross-functional team as well as understanding of customer needs. This thesis is an empirical case study research where the case organisation is a spare part organisation of Konecranes Port Service. Data is collected by mixed method meaning that both quantitative and qualitative data are used in the empirical part of the thesis. The case organisation works in spare part sales for port cranes, and constantly develops new spare part products and packages into their product portfolio. A general Stage-Gate new product development process has been introduced for the use of the case organisation. The aim of the thesis is to find out how the current process could be developed to be even more suitable for the spare part business, and to specify the areas of responsibility and tasks within the different stages of the process. Development ideas are collected using a qualitative research method by interviewing employees from the case organisation. In addition, the quantitative data is used to find out the lead times of previous new product development projects, as well as bottleneck from the previously used process, are clarified. Based on the research results, the lead time of previous new product development projects has been about a year, varying with the size of the project. The bottleneck was found to be the develop-stage which on average took 192 days. Based on the results an idea for future research is to find out how this process stage could be accelerated. Several development ideas for the current process were obtained based on the interviews, and the recommended process with areas of responsibility will be presented in the last chapter of the thesis paper

Geological report of the Paz River basin

Appendix 13/15 of the publication "State of the environment in the Norwegian, Finnish and Russian border area 2007" (The Finnish Environment 6/2007)

Kalliiden lääkkeiden käyttöönotosta suositus

Kalliit lääkkeet on otettava käyttöön yhdenmukaisella prosessilla. Ei ole tarkoituksenmukaista, että sairaanhoitopiirit kilpailisivat keskenään erilaisella lääkekirjolla, varsinkaan silloin kun on ¬kysymyksessä hyvin kallis hoito. Pelisäännöt on nyt tehty

Risk factors for major adverse cardiovascular events after the first acute coronary syndrome

Aims To evaluate risk factors for major adverse cardiac event (MACE) after the first acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and to examine the prevalence of risk factors in post-ACS patients. Methods We used Finnish population-based myocardial infarction register, FINAMI, data from years 1993-2011 to identify survivors of first ACS (n = 12686), who were then followed up for recurrent events and all-cause mortality for three years. Finnish FINRISK risk factor surveys were used to determine the prevalence of risk factors (smoking, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes and blood pressure) in post-ACS patients (n = 199). Results Of the first ACS survivors, 48.4% had MACE within three years of their primary event, 17.0% were fatal. Diabetes (p = 4.4 x 10(-7)), heart failure (HF) during the first ACS attack hospitalization (p = 6.8 x 10(-15)), higher Charlson index (p = 1.56 x 10(-19)) and older age (p = .026) were associated with elevated risk for MACE in the three-year follow-up, and revascularization (p = .0036) was associated with reduced risk. Risk factor analyses showed that 23% of ACS survivors continued smoking and cholesterol levels were still high (>5mmol/l) in 24% although 86% of the patients were taking lipid lowering medication. Conclusion Diabetes, higher Charlson index and HF are the most important risk factors of MACE after the first ACS. Cardiovascular risk factor levels were still high among survivors of first ACS.Peer reviewe

The validity of heart failure diagnoses in the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register

Background: Contemporary validation studies of register-based heart failure diagnoses based on current guidelines and complete clinical data are lacking in Finland and internationally. Our objective was to assess the positive and negative predictive values of heart failure diagnoses in a nationwide hospital discharge register.Methods: Using Finnish Hospital Discharge Register data from 2013–2015, we obtained the medical records for 120 patients with a register-based diagnosis for heart failure (cases) and for 120 patients with a predisposing condition for heart failure, but without a heart failure diagnosis (controls). The medical records of all patients were assessed by a physician who categorized each individual as having heart failure (with reduced or preserved ejection fraction) or no heart failure, based on the definition of current European Society of Cardiology heart failure guidelines. Unclear cases were assessed by a panel of three physicians. This classification was considered as the clinical gold standard, against which the registers were assessed.Results: Register-based heart failure diagnoses had a positive predictive value of 0.85 (95% CI 0.77–0.91) and a negative predictive value of 0.83 (95% CI 0.75–0.90). The positive predictive value decreased when we classified patients with transient heart failure (duration Conclusions: Heart failure diagnoses of the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register have good positive predictive value and negative predictive value, even when patients with pre-existing heart conditions are used as healthy controls. Our results suggest that heart failure diagnoses based on register data can be reliably used for research purposes.</p

Using recombinant lactococci as an approach to dissect the immunomodulating capacity of surface piliation in probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG

Peer reviewe

Using recombinant lactococci as an approach to dissect the immunomodulating capacity of surface piliation in probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG

Peer reviewe

Exome sequencing of Finnish isolates enhances rare-variant association power.

Exome-sequencing studies have generally been underpowered to identify deleterious alleles with a large effect on complex traits as such alleles are mostly rare. Because the population of northern and eastern Finland has expanded considerably and in isolation following a series of bottlenecks, individuals of these populations have numerous deleterious alleles at a relatively high frequency. Here, using exome sequencing of nearly 20,000 individuals from these regions, we investigate the role of rare coding variants in clinically relevant quantitative cardiometabolic traits. Exome-wide association studies for 64 quantitative traits identified 26 newly associated deleterious alleles. Of these 26 alleles, 19 are either unique to or more than 20 times more frequent in Finnish individuals than in other Europeans and show geographical clustering comparable to Mendelian disease mutations that are characteristic of the Finnish population. We estimate that sequencing studies of populations without this unique history would require hundreds of thousands to millions of participants to achieve comparable association power

Early fecal microbiota composition in children who later develop celiac disease and associated autoimmunity

Objectives: Several studies have reported that the intestinal microbiota composition of celiac disease (CD) patients differs from healthy individuals. The possible role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of the disease is, however, not known. Here, we aimed to assess the possible differences in early fecal microbiota composition between children that later developed CD and healthy controls matched for age, sex and HLA risk genotype.Materials and methods: We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to examine the fecal microbiota of 27 children with high genetic risk of developing CD. Nine of these children developed the disease by the age of 4 years. Stool samples were collected at the age of 9 and 12 months, before any of the children had developed CD. The fecal microbiota composition of children who later developed the disease was compared with the microbiota of the children who did not have CD or associated autoantibodies at the age of 4 years. Delivery mode, early nutrition, and use of antibiotics were taken into account in the analyses.Results: No statistically significant differences in the fecal microbiota composition were found between children who later developed CD (n = 9) and the control children without disease or associated autoantibodies (n = 18).Conclusions: Based on our results, the fecal microbiota composition at the age of 9 and 12 months is not associated with the development of CD. Our results, however, do not exclude the possibility of duodenal microbiota changes or a later microbiota-related trigger for the disease.</p