New Insights on Implementing Lean in Product Development Systems

LAI Webinar Knowledge Exchange Event presentatio

The Lean Innovation Roadmap - A Systematic Approach to Introducing Lean in Product Development Processes and Establishing a Learning Organization

The application of Lean principles in the field of product development is the subject of a growing number of publications. In the past, significant efforts have been undertaken to identify and describe the practices of a Lean Product Development (Lean PD) system. The important question of how these elements of Lean PD can be implemented in a company, however, remains underinvestigated. The thesis at hand examines the process of implementing Lean PD and gives recommendations for a successful introduction of Lean principles in product development. Following a systematic approach, at the beginning of this work the basics of Lean Thinking and product development systems are reviewed. Existing approaches to Lean PD in literature are discussed. Building upon this, a novel and coherent definition of a Lean PD system, consisting of eleven distinct Lean PD components, is derived. The components of Lean PD are described in detail and investigated with regard to their interdependencies. The findings of this analysis serve as a basis to derive five major hypotheses on the efficient introduction of Lean PD

Why matter matters: how technology characteristics shape the strategic framing of technologies

Previous work stresses that actors use strategic technology framing—i.e. purposeful language and rhetoric—to shape technology expectations, persuade stakeholders, and influence the evolution of technologies along their life-cycle. Currently, however, the literature predominantly describes strategic technology framing as a sociopolitical process, and provides only limited insights into how the framing itself is shaped by the material characteristics of the technologies being framed. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a comparative, longitudinal case study of two leading research organizations in the United States and Germany pursuing competing solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies to examine how technology characteristics shape the strategic framing of technologies. We show that to frame PV technologies in their own favor, executives made use of four framing dimensions (potential, prospect, performance, and progress) and three framing tactics (conclusion, conditioning, and concession). Moreover, we show that which framing dimensions and tactics actors selected depended on the maturity and evolution of the technology they pursued, respectively. By highlighting how technology characteristics shape strategic technology framing, we contribute to the literatures on social movements, institutional entrepreneurship, and impression management. Additionally, by providing a coherent framework of strategic technology framing, our study complements existing findings in the literature on the sociology of expectations and contributes to a better understanding of how technology hypes emerge

Not My Business: How Individuals’ Role Identities Shape Sensegiving During Corporate Sustainability Initiatives

Managing organizational change toward corporate sustainability requires leaders to engage in sensegiving activities to alter organizational members’ interpretation of issues within and outside the organization. However, we still lack detailed insights into how efforts aimed at changing members’ cognitive frames through sensegiving are shaped by differences in members’ roles and role identities. To address this shortcoming, we draw on an 18-month longitudinal case study of a sustainability initiative within a medium-sized firm. We show that role identities shape the effectiveness of sensegiving, since they can lead individuals to dodge, delete, or disregard frame-challenging information. At the same time, persistent differences in frames across individuals within the organization may lead organizational members to constrain, criticize, or counteract others’ role adjustment. By developing a framework that shows how interactions between sensegiving, role identities, and cognitive frames shape organizational change, our work contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability, sensemaking/sensegiving, and role identities.ISSN:1086-0266ISSN:1552-741

Leaders or laggards? The evolution of electric utilities’ business portfolios during the energy transition

ISSN:0301-421

sj-docx-1-oae-10.1177_10860266231183955 – Supplemental material for Not My Business: How Individuals’ Role Identities Shape Sensegiving During Corporate Sustainability Initiatives

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-oae-10.1177_10860266231183955 for Not My Business: How Individuals’ Role Identities Shape Sensegiving During Corporate Sustainability Initiatives by Joern Hoppmann, Marcel Richert and Timo Busch in Organization & Environment</p

Beyond innovation and deployment: Modeling the impact of technology-push and demand-pull policies in Germany's solar policy mix

Governments around the world try to accelerate sociotechnical change toward sustainability by introducing policy mixes that combine technology-push and demand-pull instruments. Beyond innovation and deployment, other objectives, such as domestic job and industry creation, are usually part of these policy mixes. However, little is known about how policy mixes should be designed and interactions between policy instruments considered when governments try to achieve multiple objectives simultaneously. We address these questions using an agent-based model of the sociotechnical system for solar photovoltaics in Germany that simulates technology adoption, industry dynamics, international spillovers and trade. By changing public spending on research and development and the solar feed-in tariff, forty-five variations of the historical policy mix in Germany are systematically evaluated. The results show that a narrow focus on innovation and deployment outcomes by academic researchers can lead to recommendations for the design of policy mixes that compromise key dimensions of sociotechnical change, such as job creation. Moreover, the simulations reveal that, because of path-dependent interactions between policy instruments, minor changes in the design of policy instruments can lead to vastly different policy outcomes. These findings have important implications for the literature on policy mixes, technology-push and demand-pull instruments, and sociotechnical transitions.ISSN:0048-7333ISSN:1873-762

Can designs inspired by control theory keep deployment policies effective and cost-efficient as technology prices fall?

Deployment policies based on economic incentives are among the most effective tools for speeding up the diffusion of clean energy technologies. Policy instruments such as feed-in tariffs have played a critical role in driving the growth of solar photovoltaics, and could accelerate the uptake of other technologies that are key to the decarbonization of energy systems. Historical experiences, however, show that failing to adjust economic incentives to falling technology prices can fundamentally undermine these policies' effectiveness and cost-efficiency. This paper addresses this challenge by assessing three novel policy designs. Based on control-theory principles, the proposed mechanisms modify incentives in response to changes in deployment, policy costs, or profitability for adopters. We assess the outcomes that each policy design would have achieved when applied to Germany's feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaics between 2000 and 2016. For this purpose, we developed an agent-based model that allows us to simulate the adoption decisions of individual households and medium-sized and large firms, as well as the evolution of technology prices. Our results show that responsive designs inspired by control theory might produce policies that follow their targets more closely, and at a lower cost. In addition, our analysis suggests that the studied designs could greatly reduce uncertainty over policy outcomes and windfall profits. This research also highlights the role of the temporal distribution of policy targets, and identifies policy design tradeoffs, drawing relevant implications for the design of future deployment policies.ISSN:1748-9326ISSN:1748-931

Can designs inspired by control theory keep deployment policies effective and cost-efficient as technology prices fall?

Deployment policies based on economic incentives are among the most effective tools for speeding up the diffusion of clean energy technologies. Policy instruments such as feed-in tariffs have played a critical role in driving the growth of solar photovoltaics, and could accelerate the uptake of other technologies that are key to the decarbonization of energy systems. Historical experiences, however, show that failing to adjust economic incentives to falling technology prices can fundamentally undermine these policies’ effectiveness and cost-efficiency. This paper addresses this challenge by assessing three novel policy designs. Based on control-theory principles, the proposed mechanisms modify incentives in response to changes in deployment, policy costs, or profitability for adopters. We assess the outcomes that each policy design would have achieved when applied to Germany’s feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaics between 2000 and 2016. For this purpose, we developed an agent-based model that allows us to simulate the adoption decisions of individual households and medium-sized and large firms, as well as the evolution of technology prices. Our results show that responsive designs inspired by control theory might produce policies that follow their targets more closely, and at a lower cost. In addition, our analysis suggests that the studied designs could greatly reduce uncertainty over policy outcomes and windfall profits. This research also highlights the role of the temporal distribution of policy targets, and identifies policy design tradeoffs, drawing relevant implications for the design of future deployment policies