An empirical study into the causes of lateness of new product development projects

In this paper we investigate the causes of lateness of new product development projects. From literature, we have identified three possible causes of lateness: optimistic estimates of processing times, instability of project networks and the impact of due date nearness on engineer's performance. Over a time-span of 42 weeks, detailed empirical data were collected of two product development projects to verifY the occurrence of these three causes in real-life product development projects. The data reveal that indeed engineers produce optimistic estimates, but only for large work packages, that the project networks were highly unstable, and that the engineer's performance was highly affected by due date nearness. The data suggest that project lateness is mainly due to the combined effect of project network instability and the engineer performance being dependent on due date nearness. From the interpretation of the data implications are derived for the management ofnew product development projects

Preventing or escaping the suppression mechanism : intervention conditions

The benefits of strategically balancing exploitation and exploration are well documented in the literature. However, many firms tend to overemphasize exploitation efforts, even in the face of the strong need to step up their exploration activities. A process theory behind this phenomenon, the suppression mechanism, is further explored here. This process describes the interplay between top management (developing a perceived need to explore influenced by management myopia) and the board of directors as gatekeepers of the capital market (generating an external pressure to exploit) as severely limiting for the formation of a profitable and sustainable exploitation-exploration balance. We draw on system dynamics modeling to identify the critical intervention conditions required for organizations to prevent, or escape, the suppression mechanism. As such, the main theoretical contribution of this paper is the identification of critical intervention conditions (i.e. target, timing, size and duration)

Care & cure combined:Using simulation to develop organization design theory for health care processes

The health care sector is facing a multitude of problems at the same time: rising costs, increase in patients with lifelong diseases, and unsatisfying quality. There is a prominent role for conditions that require a combination of simple (care) and complex (cure) activities. These conditions require different provider expertise; one offering care expertise or more general, preventive monitoring, and the other offering cure expertise, or more specialized, medical monitoring/intervention. In organization design theory the focused factory concept is presented as a way of organizing such processes. However, the application of this concept does not always work well. For decennia, Dutch perinatal care is organized according to the focused factory concept, but recently there has been considerable debate with regard to its performance. Research has shown that the design of the Dutch perinatal care system might not be the right one (Pieters, Van Oirschot, & Akkermans, 2010). In response to its problems, the sector is seeking alternative organization designs. In this paper simulation modeling is used to evaluate these different organization design experiments. From these simulations, we seek to build organization design theory for this type of conditions (Davis, Eisenhardt, & Bingham, 2007; schwaninger & Grösser, 2008)

Empirical studies into the dynamics of product development tasks

no abstrac

Ambidexterity and getting trapped in the suppression of exploration : a simulation model

The benefits of strategically balancing exploitation and exploration are well documented in the literature. However, many firms tend to overemphasize exploitation efforts, even in the face of the strong need to step up their exploration activities. We draw on system dynamics modeling and a case study to address this gap in the literature, and develop a theoretical framework of ambidexterity as a capacitated delay process. This framework describes how the interplay between cognitive processes and motivational factors at the top management level severely limits the formation of ambidextrous capability. As such, this paper provides a micro-level theory of how individual and interactional processes at the managerial level inhibit the development of ambidextrous capability

Samenwerking in ontwikkeling : productontwikkeling door uitbesteder en toeleverancier

Eindrapport van het project 'Kwaliteit in Innovatie door Samenwerking en Synergie". Dit rapport zat in de map, behorende bij het symposium: Partners in productontwikkeling : toeleverancier en uitbesteder; Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 28 november 1996

Time for a hundred visions and revisions : a system dynamics study of the impact of concurrent engineering on supply chain performance

No abstrac