Get synchronized: Bridging the gap between design and volume production

The interface between Design and Manufacturing forms a locus of frequent interpersonal conflict. Misunderstandings, unwelcome surprises and planning problems are the rule rather than the exception. Within companies that deliver consumer goods in large quantities to the market this interface is also the transition from exploration (seeking new business opportunities) to exploitation (profiting from those consumer products). This thesis reports on a first exploration of the Design-Manufacturing interface on the level of the participants from both processes using the method of Grounded Theory. This book conceptually describes how these actors bridge the gap between Design and Volume Production and portrays their social process in detail. The insights presented here are to be seen as a social-interactive perspective on the process of product innovation and are complementary to the rational-analytic viewpoint that focuses on the material and tangibility of product and process. The kind of research that this book presents reflects the increased attention of academic researchers towards the human dimension of the product innovation process. Over the last decade the focus of design researchers has widened from individual designers, via teams of designers towards design teams in corporate settings. This movement increasingly views design as a social process which connects the engineering sciences with the social sciences.Industrial Design Engineerin

The boundary spanning practice of (user centered) design

Most products are developed by New Product Development (NPD) teams, composed of specialists that need to collaborate closely. One of those specialists is a user-centered designer, focusing on the usability and experience of use of products. In this qualitative empirical study the contribution of designers to NPD teams is explored, filling a gap in literature. It is found that the user centered framing of designers, their imaginative capabilities and their well-developed expressive skills, have a particular contribution to NPD teams. It enables to span complex boundaries inside NPD teams, e.g. between hard- and software engineers or between marketing and R&D. Designers themselves are not nominated boundary spanners, rather the boundary spanning capabilities is a by-product of their design practice. We named this 'mirroring', which is conceptualized as the dynamical and ongoing redrafting of representations of the intended product, enabling team members to align and coordinate activities cross-disciplinary. The implications concern NPD (management) and design (management), as it sheds a new light on what designers (need to) do and the contribution to NPD teams.Product Innovatie ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

Towards different communication in collaborative design

Purpose – This paper aims to create a social constructivist perspective on collaborative architecture that is complementary to the rational-analytic perspective as embodied in the "hard" project management tools. Design/methodology/approach – Two theoretical perspectives from the field of design methodology, "design as co-evolution", and "design as a social process", form the base for an integrated perspective of collaboration. This integrated perspective describes in detail the social process among multi functional actors involved in co-creational processes. A third theoretical framework discusses the process of maturing conflicts and conflict prevention using the integrated perspective on collaboration. Data from two empirical studies are used to illustrate both perspectives. The first study used a protocol study approach and the second a grounded approach. Findings – This paper shows the similarities in design methodology and conflict literature by introducing a social constructivist perspective on collaborative architecture. Especially, the notion of cognitive errors as root cause of "conflictuous" situations becomes apparent. The paper describes in detail the role of perceptual differences that can make and break collaborative architecture. Practical implications – Based on these findings some hypothetical intervention strategies are proposed that collaborating actors can apply in order to prevent "conflictuous" situations to grow beyond control and even bend those situations towards innovations. Actors engaged in multi functional and multi actor creational processes might benefit from building a rudimentary mental model representing the world of the other function or other organization. Originality/value – The paper brings together the intra-subjective and inter-subjective level in the context of co-creating (architectural) processes by combining two very different streams of literature, design methodology and maturing conflicts. In both streams one could identify a similar distinction between cognitive processes and social processes. Collaborative architecture without having social-emotional conflicts is realized by explicating implicitly held knowledge, understandings and perceptions. An individual cognitive effort as well as a social-interactive effort is needed in which actors explicitly discuss differences in perception before these perceptions evolve into misleading truths. As a basis for such synchronizing discussions the actors need to have some sort of rudimentary understanding of each other's thought world and trust in each other's professionalism and factuality. Thus, preventing conflicts is not about having more communication, but about different communication

Innovating innovation: Towards a NPD-management taxonomy

This paper reports on a government funded research project that was aimed at the development of a meta-method to improve NPD-processes in industry by the use of tools and methods available in literature. We choose to develop an industry-relevant taxonomy that could serve as means to categorise the NPD-tools and at the same time could facilitate the process of improving the NPD process itself, hence 'innovating innovation'. A design inclusive research process with various design and probe cycles resulted in the first reliable version of the taxonomy. Five case studies provided the view from the NPD trenches that informed the creation of an industry relevant taxonomy covering all NPD tools from literature. The subsequent design and probe cycles were performed with heavy involvement of the different potential users from industry, consultancies and academic institutions. During the design cycles the taxonomy and its operational method were tested and refined and named the NPD Management Canvas. The enthusiastic reactions in a final proof-of concept showed us the value of the meta-method and the reliability of our taxonomy. Therefore the Innovation Management Canvas proposed in this paper looks very promising for application by academics (tailoring research portfolio) and by industry to innovate their innovation processes.Product Innovatie ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

The right fidelity: Designedly representations that enhance multidisciplinary product development

In product development, representations of the intended product are needed to enable specialists to learn about what they develop together. A variety of representations is deployed, ranging from textual documents like requirements, up to integrated prototypes. The difference between these representations is the fidelity: the degree to which a representation corresponds to the eventual real world product. In a long term participatory study, we observed that some of these representations serve as boundary objects: objects that have a capability in teams and organizations to transfer, translate and transform knowledge across difficult epistemological barriers. However, the fidelity of these representations varied considerably. Expressing the intended product is not merely a translation of a preconceived idea in an appealing visual, but coshapes the social process. We categorized the representations into four groups, and found that the 'right' fidelity of a representation is situational dependent where the situation is formed by the involved boundaries and aim of the social interactions. We present the categories and a framework to explain our findings, including the relation with the team process.Product Innovation ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

Designing organizations in the CCI

Drastic cuts in government budgets will force cultural organizations to reconsider their position by initiating internal discussions on how to avert the risk of these cuts. In order to avoid gradual withering of their proposition, cultural organizations will increasingly search for new organizational constellations with new business models. Converting the cultural organization into a hybrid organization combining cultural as well as business values, is one of the options and a major challenge. There seems to be pressure on preserving the cultural values that belong to the artistic core. This paper investigates the application of the IDER-model, that combines design thinking and design related implementation theories that take the potential conflicting value systems into account as well as a focus on the subsequent realization of associated organizational changes. An additional challenge is to realize the new structure in a way that it stays flexible as were it of a prototypical nature. Based on this theoretical discussion the paper proposes an agenda for future research to generalise our findings. The model explicated in the paper relates to the fundamental choices underlying the adaption to external changes through hybridization.Product Innovation ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

The CDIO framework and new perspectives on technological innovation

Technological innovation happens on a daily basis all around us. Yet, in our educational programs there is rarely any attention paid to what this is and how this unfolds over time in real life. This is not at all surprising, since there is not one unified and widely accepted body of knowledge on technological innovation that is grounded enough, meaning, knowledge based on research of technological innovation practice. The CDIO-framework is implicitly addressing innovation from the perspective of existing technological knowledge and therefore is not yet equipped enough for the purpose of tech-innovation. This paper therefore aims to initiate a discussion on what technological innovation is and how this could fit within the CDIO-framework. We will provide a definition of technological innovation based on innovation theoretical framework which reaches its readiness when practice is able to apply the new technology to design, engineer, build, maintain and dispose the objects that apply that particular technology. This lens will be used to analyze a well-documented case thatreports on the development of a new structural aircraft material that is now widely used in the Airbus A380, hence a technological innovation. It will be shown in this paper that the research activities that support the development of the new technology, follow the logic of innovating as a generic and natural phenomenon. The paper ends by proposing a possible path to bring the subject of technological innovation within the confines of our educational curricula, without too much cutting on the subjects that we are teaching. Its base comes from the idea that what we are teaching today is the result of a technological innovation process of yesterday.OLD Management and OrganisationEducation Managemen

Towards a different view on ship design: The development of ships observed through a social?technological perspective

The research this paper reports on aims to develop a design and engineering strategy for complex ships in between incremental and radical innovation. The majority of European ship-design industry concentrates on the development of complex, one-off ‘specials’ for the offshore industry, like dredgers, drill ships, pipelaying ships, et cetera. This industry is complex, not just in terms of the industrial structure but also in the terms of the object. To control the complexity the industry uses large and expansive knowledge bases that support the design, engineering and manufacturing activities. The focus of the academic research in this field is close to practice and dominantly aims at developing knowledge and tools that supports the present engineering practices. As these strategies are aimed at controlling the complexity, they leave very little room for more innovative developments. On the other side of the spectrum there is a ship-design practice that does allow radical ship design: design and engineering from a blank sheet of paper. Not surprising that these projects are laborious and expensive. The space in between those two design strategies seems unaddressed in literature and is only occasionally found in practice. The design of complex structures literature appears to be scarce, even though this is an area where European ship-design industry is heavily involved. We interviewed stakeholders from ship industry, looked into the design literature to describe the present situation and finally performed cases studies in other fields of application for inspiration. Based on the case studies we illustrate an alternative design strategy that leaves more space for innovation without starting from scratch. This focuses on the complex interactions between the different levels of decomposition in a complex structure such as a ship. We will illustrate that the wide range of actors involved in these designs make such a change in industry to a sociotechnical challenge.Product Innovatie ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

Understanding the NPD - Production interface: Advanced industrialisation and growth in the composite industry

This paper provides an initial attempt to theoretically describe and understand how the composite product supply chain could reach advanced levels of industrialisation. At the heart of this work rest the interface between NPD (New Product Development) and Production as the central point where composite technology innovation takes place. This exploratory research is based on an analysis of qualitative observations gathered through interviews on different cases and interface aspects in the industry. The main goal is to create a theoretical framework on the growth strategies for the sector and understand what can enable increased levels of industrialisation within companies developing composite products and technologiesProduct Innovation and ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin

Applying design thinking elsewhere: Organizational context matters

In this contribution design thinking is taken as a transfer of design methods from product development to other domains. It is argued that the success of this transfer depends on the organisational context offered to design thinking in these other domains. We describe the application of design methods in product development and in two new domains by what we have called the IDER model, where D refers to design and I, E and R to the organisational context. Then we show that characteristics of the contexts in the new domains may determine the success of applying design thinking in these domains. Finally we focus on the transitions among design and the other contextual elements as another source that can ‘make or break’ the success of applying design thinking. We support our arguments with two cases of design thinking: social design and business-innovation design.Product Innovation ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin