The coordination structure of international collaborative technology arrangements

As the pace and breadth of technological progress increases around the world, companies both large and small are forming international collaborative arrangements as the basis for developing competitive advantage from technology. Management of these arrangements requires the creation and maintenance of a wide variety of strategic and operational interdependencies within and between companies. The paper introduces a method for developing a representation leading to a system level understanding of the coordination structure of international collaborative arrangements. The method is based on recent advances in coordination theory and object oriented domain analysis. We apply the method to represent four international collaborative arrangements. The representations that result are then used as data to identify five basic modules of the coordination structure of international collaborative arrangements: strategic management, intra-firm management, joint management, technology exchange and customer interaction. The proposed method leads to increased organizational learning of the goal oriented coordination processes for which managers are responsible when establishing international collaborative technology arrangements.     

Developing Sustainable New Products in the Textile and Upholstered Furniture Industries: Role of External Integrative Capabilities

Environmental sustainability has become one of the key issues for strategy, marketing, and innovation. In particular, significant attention is being paid by companies, customers, media, and regulators to development and consumption of green products. It is argued that through the efficient use of resources, low carbon impacts, and risks to the environment, green products can be essential to help society toward the environmental sustainability targets. The number of green product introductions is rapidly increasing, as demonstrated by the growing number of companies obtaining eco‐labels or third party certifications for their environmentally friendly products. Hundreds of companies representing most of the industries, such as Intel, SC Johnson, Clorox, Wal‐Mart, and Hewlett–Packard, have recently introduced new green products, underlining the need to develop products that create both economic and environmental values for the firm and customers. A review of the literature shows that academic research on green product development has grown in interest. However, to date, only a few empirical studies have addressed the challenge of integrating environmental issues into new product development (NPD). Previous empirical works have mainly focused on a set of activities for the green product development process at the project level. After years of paying no or marginal attention to environmental sustainability issues, most of the companies now generally realize that it would require knowledge and competencies to develop green products on a regular basis. These knowledge and competencies can be varied, such as R&D, environmental know‐how, clean technology/manufacturing process, building knowledge on measuring environmental performance of products, etc., that may be developed internally or can be integrated through external networks. Adopting a resource‐based view of the firm, this article aims at (1) investigating the role of capabilities useful for companies to integrate knowledge and competencies from outside of the firm on green product development in terms of both manufacturing process and product design and (2) understanding whether green product development opens new product, market, and technology opportunities, as well as leads to better financial performance of NPD programs. To this end, a survey was conducted in two Italian manufacturing industries in which environmental issues are becoming increasingly important, namely textiles and upholstered furniture. A questionnaire was sent to 700 firms, and 102 useable questionnaires were returned. Results show that (1) companies engage in developing external integrative capabilities through the creation of collaborative networks with actors along the supply chain, the acquisition of technical know‐how, and the creation of external knowledge links with actors outside the supply chain; (2) external knowledge links play a key role in the integration of environmental sustainability issues into the manufacturing process, whereas capabilities such as the acquisition of technical know‐how and the creation of collaborative networks prove to be more important for integrating environmental issues into product design; and (3) the integration of environmental sustainability issues into NPD programs in terms of product design leads to the creation of new opportunities for firms, such as opening new markets, technologies, and product arenas, though not necessarily leading to improved financial performance of the NPD programs.     

Estimating the benefits from collaboration: The case of SEMATECH

SEMATECH (SEmiconductor MAnufacturing TECHnology) was established in 1987 as a not-for-profit research consortium with an original mission to provide a pilot manufacturing facility where member companies could improve their semiconductor manufacturing process technology. Since its inception, SEMATECH's mission has become more general. This paper presents the findings from a quantitative case-based analysis of the returns to member companies from their investments in SEMATECH. The findings suggest that SEMATECH has provided an organizational structure in which important processes and technologies have been advanced which could not have been justified on economic grounds outside of a collaborative research arrangement.     

Concurrent Engineering Practices in Selected Swedish Companies: A Movement or an Activity of the Few?

Speed-to-market is currently becoming a highly competitive issue for manufacturing companies around the world, and much as been written about the potentials hidden in the product development process. The solutions most often called for usually include activities such as Time-Based Competition, Concurrent Engineering, and Early Manufacturing Involvement. The research and management literature on this topic usually draws upon a few well-known and well-cited successes, found at companies such as AT&T, Xerox, and Motorola. However, a lack of broad-based research on the topic has made it difficult to establish whether the shift in competitive priorities and assorted process improvements represent a broad movement in the industry, or whether observed changes merely depict changes found in a few successful, technology-based companies. In this article, Lars Trygg presents some early findings from a broad-based survey (109 cases) within the Swedish manufacturing industry. The results indicate that a substantial part of the Swedish manufacturing industry has implemented a number of actions and methods associated with successful projects reported in the media, in order to increase their speed to the market.     

Marketing/R&D Interaction in New Product Development: Implications for New Product Success Rates

A growing body of literature has evolved which deals with the interaction between marketing and R&D in new product development. Much of this research, unfortunately, fails to associate various variables with new product success levels. Thus, it cannot suggest consensus guidelines for marketing's involvement to increase the performance levels of new products in the market place. Richard Hise, Larry O'Neal, A. Parasuraman and James McNeal report results of their analysis of the new product development procedures of 252 large manufacturing companies. The authors conclude that collaborative efforts between marketing and R&D during the actual designing of new products appear to be a key factor in explaining the success levels of new products, that management effort should focus on the design stage of the new product development process rather than on the earlier and later stages and that R&D's contributions cannot be ignored while decisions are made about marketing's role in developing new consumer and industrial products.     

Design and application of task administration protocols for collaborative production and service systems

This research investigates the design of Task Administration Protocols (TAPs) for effective task allocation and administration in collaborative production/service systems. Customer-focused and concurrent engineering service systems process tasks more effectively as a result of the power of collaboration among multiple participants. In such environments, however, complex situations might arise that require decisions that cannot be handled by simple Coordination Protocols (CPs). To design an effective control mechanism to manage complex situations, this research identifies basic problems in collaborative task administration and proposes the design framework of protocols to solve the problems. In the framework, TAPs consist of three component-protocols: (1) Task Requirement Analysis Protocol, (2) Shared Resource Allocation Protocol, and (3) Synchronization and Time-Out Protocol. Each component protocol is activated to address priority-based allocation, resource-aware allocation, and task re-allocation at a different task administration context, ranging from task initialization, task allocation, to task monitoring, respectively. To analyze feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed design, TAPs are applied to two collaborative production/service systems. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance achieved by different TAPs and non-TAP CPs under various load conditions. The results show that there is a significant performance improvement by TAPs over CPs in most cases, e.g., 84% vs. 64% in terms of task completion ratio. The advantage of TAPs can be explained by their design with relatively higher level of collaborative intelligence, addressing more complex control logic than non-TAP CPs.     

The role of intermediaries in cross‐industry innovation processes

In this article, we investigate the role intermediaries play in the cross‐industry innovation process. Intermediaries are external institutions that support companies in their innovative activities. They are frequently used to bridge gaps between different industries. Our research focuses on the question of which capabilities an intermediary should have in order to achieve success in initiating a cross‐industry innovation. Our empirical base consists of a survey of 107 European manufacturing companies and an analysis of six collaborative cross‐industry innovation projects. The company survey is used to identify the capabilities an intermediary should have during each of the three phases of the innovation process. The cross‐industry projects, each of which involves a Swiss or a German industrial company and an intermediary, provide us with analyzable data. We conclude our study by identifying three types of intermediary: the innovation broadener, the innovation leverager, and the innovation multiplier.     

Remodularization of a Product Line: Adding Complexity to Project Management

Faced with ever-tighter schedules, product development professionals employ various methods for staying at least one step ahead of the competition. In particular, an autonomous, cross-functional team offers an effective structure for meeting the sometimes conflicting objectives of timely delivery of a high-quality, easily manufactured product. To complicate matters, however, companies must manage not only individual projects, but also entire product lines. Changes in product and process technology eventually necessitate revamping of the product architecture—that is, the remodularization of a product line. Can an autonomous project team provide the long-term perspective necessary for such efforts? Or, does remodularization of a product line require centralized oversight by functional management? Mats Lundqvist, Niklas Sundgren, and Lars Trygg explore this issue by examining product development efforts at two Swedish manufacturing companies. Specifically, their study explores this research question: Does a high degree of project autonomy limit the possibility for effective remodularization of product architecture? Both companies were involved in remodularization projects with stringent requirements for project cost and duration, but the companies employed markedly different managerial models in these efforts. One company took a centralized approach, except that two design engineers worked full time on the project. The other company used the autonomous model, with two exceptions: functional managers worked closely with some project members during the task specification phase of the project; and the project leader, though a heavyweight in many respects, did not have formal decision-making power. The latter project demonstrated that an autonomous project team can maintain a long-term perspective during development of a product. In other words, this project team was able to meet challenging time and cost objectives while developing a product consisting of highly compatible modules and subsystems. Although a centralized management approach might be expected to offer greater efficiency, the company using that approach failed to meet project goals for development time, product cost, and long-term product line effectiveness. However, the shortcomings of that effort are more directly attributable to the management style of the project leader than to the management structure employed.     

Industrial exploitation of new joining technologies

Joining technology is critical to manufacturing and fabrication industries, since it greatly influences the design, assembly and ultimate competitiveness of the product. In particular, adhesive bonding is now attracting strong interest from many industries. This trend is further strengthened by dramatic advances in new materials, many of which cannot be joined by conventional means.
However, most industries are failing to exploit the opportunities offered by current adhesive technology, for a variety of reasons. CEST (the Centre for Exploitation of Science and Technology) has undertaken to examine these reasons, and to initiate a programme of actions which will lead to wider acceptance of adhesive joining within industry.
We have selected a number of companies from a range of industries, which we believe can effectively drive the exploitation process. By working closely with these companies it has been possible to define a number of strategic projects, which will promote this exploitation process. Several projects consist of targeted research and development, to fill the 'missing links' of technology which have impeded exploitation to date.
These coordinated actions will be initiated from the end of 1989. Typically, these projects will be collaborative, involving both industrial and university or polytechnic partners. The scopes of a number of such projects are described in detail, and their potential impacts on manufacturing processes are explained.     

Quality management practices and competitive performance: Empirical evidence from Japanese manufacturing companies

This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between quality management practices and competitive performance in Japanese manufacturing companies. The data was gathered from two surveys including the common sample of twenty-seven Japanese manufacturing companies in the 1990s and the 2000s. Statistical techniques are used to compare the degree of implementation of the eleven quality management practices and their impact on different dimensions of competitive performance between two periods. Findings of this study highlight the stability and consistency of the Japanese quality management, which can be used as one of the strategic weapons for maintaining competitive advantage of Japanese manufacturing companies.     

Customer-Driven Product Development Through Quality Function Deployment in the U.S. and Japan

Quality Function Deployment is a tool for bringing the voice of the customer into the product development process from conceptual design through to manufacturing. It begins with a matrix that links customer desires to product engineering requirements, along with competitive benchmarking information, and further matrices can be used to ultimately link this to design of the manufacturing system. Unlike other methods originally developed in the U.S. and transferred to Japan, the QFD methodology was born out of Total Quality Control (TQC) activities in Japan during the 1960s and has been transferred to companies in the U.S. This article reports on the results of a 1995 survey of more than 400 companies in the U.S. and Japan using QFD. The research questions investigated in this study were developed both inductively from QFD case studies in the U.S. and Japan and deductively from the literature. The reported results are in part counterintuitive. The U.S. companies reported a higher degree of usage, management support, cross‐functional involvement, use of QFD driven data sources, and perceived benefits from using QFD. For the most part, the main uses of QFD in the U.S. were restricted to the first matrix (“House of Quality”) that links customer requirements to product engineering requirements and rarely was this carried forward to later matrices. U.S. companies were more apt to use newly collected customer data sources (e.g., focus groups) and methods for analyzing customer requirements. Japanese companies reported using existing product data (e.g., warranty) and a broader set of matrices to a greater extent. The use of analytical techniques in conjunction with QFD (e.g., simulation, design of experiments, regression, mathematical target setting, and analytic hierarchy process) was not wide spread in either country. U.S. companies were more likely to report benefits of QFD in improving cross‐functional integration and better decision‐making processes compared to Japanese companies. Possible reasons for these cross‐national differences as well as their implications are discussed.     

CASE STUDY: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF COMPONENT MANAGEMENT FOR A NEW DESIGN

This paper explores the viability of standardization of design and manufacturing techniques to expedite product development and control design proliferation using an example of a leading transport refrigeration unit manufacturer. As an incremental approach to implementing standardization in a product development environment, a conceptual framework for component management decision support system is presented to build a case for its technical feasibility. The primary objective of this research case study is to provide an economic justification for implementing the proposed system. A three level decision making hierarchy is proposed with economic optimization for levels 1 and 2 representing standardization of system modules and capacity decisions for a product line respectively and thermodynamic optimization for level 3 representing control systems to keep the system dynamically balanced in changing environments. Other potential applications amenable to classification are identified.     

Technology Sharing in Manufacturing Business Groups

Technology represents the primordial force for companies and organizations in securing long‐term competitiveness. In the intensive search to access new technology, organizations are more and more looking beyond the borders of the focal firm and becoming involved in various networks with suppliers, consultants, partners, and others. However, the distinction between the focal firm, on the one hand, and networks, on the other, is in this paper argued to be too extensive without intermediating nuances. Less focus is given to an in‐between perspective configured by business groups or concerns here defined as parent corporations with subsidiary companies. It is this perspective of business groups with characteristics between individual firms and open networks that is of interest in this paper. The focus is on manufacturing business groups in which the companies will typically have individual as well as common technologies. The research aim is to develop a framework to be used as an analytical tool for understanding and organizing technology sharing in manufacturing business groups. The research approach was to study technology sharing in a natural setting combining multiple in‐depth sources of evidence in a clinical research setting. A prestudy identified key dimensions in classifying cases leading to four clusters of typified cases. Data were gathered from meetings with 24 managers from various research and development (R&D) units who met regularly every other week during seven months, in‐depth interviews, internal documents and protocols, and workshops. Following the clinical field‐study approach, findings are theoretically validated in relation to literature. The analysis identifies and depicts four different types of technology‐sharing scenarios in manufacturing business groups. Each type has particular characteristics of its own. The four scenarios together provide a synthesized portfolio with different types of dimensions. A first dimension makes a distinction between sharing new technology development versus existing technology. Another distinguishes between technologies aimed at the whole business group and those aimed at specific segments. The two dimensions together comprise four different types of technology‐sharing alternatives. Each one of them can be used at the focal firm, and together, they are applicable from a business group perspective comprising technology‐sharing portfolios of manufacturing business groups.     

Enhancing Synergistic Innovative Capability in Multinational Corporations: An Empirical Investigation

A substantial amount of research has focused on determining and classifying the structures of the global research and development (R&D) organization of multinational corporations (MNCs). However, little research has been undertaken to show how the various R&D structures adopted by MNCs affect their abilities to generate and deploy innovations globally. This study initiates analysis and discussion of this latter dimension, providing empirical evidence of the relationship between the coordination structures and innovative capabilities. Specifically, this study investigates how intrafirm collaborative relationships among globally dispersed R&D units of MNCs enhance the synergistic innovative capabilities of the MNC group. The nature of the collaborative relationships among globally dispersed R&D units is evaluated in the context of four well‐established structural constructs: autonomy, formalization, socialization, and communication. Synergistic innovative capability is defined as a higher‐order ability to accumulate and deploy new knowledge or to recombine existing knowledge to create new innovations more effectively and efficiently due to collaboration among globally dispersed R&D units. It is measured using 10 items commonly used in innovation management research to measure the innovativeness of firms. The analysis is based on survey data collected from 79 R&D units belonging to North American, Japanese, and European MNCs in the telecommunications, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, chemical, and automotive industries. In addition to the survey data, seven highly experienced R&D executives who have worked for several companies were interviewed by telephone in order to obtain a richer perspective of issues and a better context from which to interpret the statistical results. Respondents included personnel from the levels of director, managing director, and vice president who were directly responsible for participating R&D units. The data were analyzed using partial least squares, a structural equation modeling technique that works well with small datasets. The results indicate that synergistic innovative capability has four distinct dimensions uniquely related to the structural variables defining the nature of collaborative relationships among globally dispersed R&D units. The four dimensions of synergistic innovative capabilities are labeled strategic R&D synergy, managerial and operational synergy, knowledge management synergy, and innovative proficiency synergy. The research and managerial implications of the findings are discussed in this article.     

Innovating through alliances: expectations and limitations

Abstract
In this paper we have analysed the innovation processes occurring in several cross-industry technology partnerships in order to suggest some key managerial issues pertaining to the effectiveness of these increasingly popular initiatives. Our general proposition, based on an extensive literature review and clinical research, is that the managerial hurdles in partnerships frequently offset, and in some cases eliminate, the expected innovation advantages. We submit that there is a fundamental tension between the dynamics of innovation and the logic of partnering. The extent of the tension, however, depends on the nature of the innovation project and on the characteristics of the partnership. Thus we recommend that managers involved in the formation of joint-R&D agreements should carry out an innovation-partnering assessment to design an appropriate management structure that would minimise the 'tension'. Lastly, we suggest some ingredients for carrying out such an assessment, and directions for further research.
Alliances seem to be today's answer to most management challenges. As recent surveys show, companies all over the world are forming partnerships to alleviate difficulties met in nearly every business activity —design, manufacturing, distribution, service… (e.g. Hergert & Morris, 1987; Urban, 1989), The popularity of such strategic initiatives in the 1980's has led to a dramatic increase in the number as well as in the forms of alliances (Hagedoorn and Schakenraad, 1990).     

A ‘Knowledge Trading Game’ for collaborative design learning in an architectural design studio

Knowledge-sharing and resource exchange are the key to the success of collaborative design learning. In an architectural design studio, design knowledge entails learning efforts that need to accumulate and recombine dispersed and complementary pieces of knowledge. In this research, firstly, ‘Knowledge Trading Game’ is proposed to be a way for promoting students’ design knowledge exchange, dissemination and refinement. Twelve students are randomly chosen as experimental participants. And secondly, ‘virtual value’ is used for students to trade their design knowledge. In this game, students buy others’ design knowledge to extend their design problem space; students decrease their design solution space through their sold design knowledge. Finally, ‘protocol analysis’ is adapted as the research methodology to examine the results of implementation. A positive outcome is identified that Knowledge Trading Game encourages collaborative design learning.     

Revenue management for make-to-order manufacturing systems with a real-life application

Abstract

Due to successful applications of revenue management in the airline industry, in recent years, there has been a growing interest to adopt revenue management in make-to-order (MTO) manufacturing systems. Several interrelated decision problems such as order acceptance/rejection, short-term capacity planning, due date assignment, and order scheduling need to be studied simultaneously in order to manage revenues effectively in MTO manufacturing systems. Both the producer’s and customer’s requirements need to be taken into account through some negotiation mechanisms that are sensitive to the service-level reputation of the manufacturing companies. In this article, we propose a new dynamic bid price–based revenue management model that considers all of the aforementioned decision problems simultaneously. A simulation optimization approach is utilized in order to determine the best possible values of control parameters for bid price, due date assignment, and price increment/reduction mechanisms. The performance of the proposed integrated revenue management model is tested on both a hypothetical example and a real problem of a bridal gown company. The computational results show that the proposed model provides significant improvements in total revenue compared to other static and dynamic bid price policies.     

Logistics in Bulgarian manufacturing companies

This paper reports the results of a survey conducted to explore the development of logistics in Bulgarian manufacturing companies. Two areas have been examined in more detail: logistics organizational developments and logistics management practices. The results for three subsets of the investigated companies—state owned, private and foreign have been compared. The conclusions of the study suggest that during the last years logistics is becoming popular among Bulgarian manufacturing companies. This is reflected in their organizational structures as well as in the applied management practices. However, in every aspect of the analysis companies of Bulgarian ownership are lagging behind foreign companies operating in Bulgaria.     

Paths Toward Radical Service Innovation in Manufacturing Companies—A Service‐Dominant Logic Perspective

Research on servitization of manufacturing companies concentrates on typologies of product–service bundles, on transition pathways to increased servitization, and on resource and capabilities configurations necessary to accomplish this transition. Missing from existing research is an analysis of the degree of novelty of service innovations introduced by manufacturing companies. Therefore, this article shifts the focus from the transition process itself to the question of how manufacturing companies can introduce radical service innovations to the market. This article links servitization literature with service innovation literature and investigates how manufacturing companies can introduce radically new services in terms of three forms of innovations: service concept innovations, customer experience innovations, and service process innovations. Service‐dominant logic (SDL) is applied as the theoretical lens because it covers four significant factors influencing the success of companies’ innovation activities: actor value networks, resource liquefaction, resource density, and resource integration. Based on a multiple case study of 24 Danish business‐to‐business manufacturing small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises and through a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, different configurations of the principles of SDL are analyzed. They describe the paths to radical service innovation. Digitalization appears as a central causal condition in the bulk of the configurations. Big and rich data generated internally within the focal company in combination with for instance customer data can enhance the innovativeness of the service offerings. However, digitalization is not a sufficient condition for launching radical service innovation—it should be combined with an efficient mobilization of resources internally within the focal company and/or collaboration with other organizations within the value system. In addition, the analysis hints to a need to detach from immediate customers as the prime driver of service innovation.     

Supply chain management in the luxury industry: A first classification of companies and their strategies

This paper aims at analysing the supply management strategies in the luxury industry in order to find out (1) whether different clusters of companies could be identified within the luxury industry, on the base of a set of contingent variables derived from previous research, and (2) which supply chain strategy is currently applied within each cluster. Case study methodology is used. A sample of 15 Italian luxury companies, belonging to different industrial sectors, was taken into account.On the basis of five classification variables (company size, selling volume, product complexity, product fashionableness and brand reputation) four clusters are identified; these clusters present differences in terms of Supply Chain strategy, as well as in terms of practices for managing manufacturing, sourcing and distribution processes.