Firms are increasingly involving suppliers in new product development (NPD) and one reason for this is to access technological knowledge. Previous research argues that purchasing fulfils an important role in involving the suppliers in NPD. However, purchasing’s role under technological uncertainty has not been investigated in detail. The purpose of this paper is to explore purchasing’s role in ...

The authors review the literature on the impact suppliers may have on the new product development (NPD) process to show the benefits of integrating suppliers within a firm’s NPD design team. In the tables, the authors have categorized the research studies examined, as either case based or empirical and reference some key findings to help future researchers in their efforts to examine early supp...

As part of a research project on design methodology, the authors have developed a framework to facilitate the tailoring of the product development process according to the context of the project. In the first part of this paper, the reader is introduced to the framework. The second part presents two case studies conducted during the Management of Product Development course at the University of ...

The Fauconnier-Ladusaw analysis of negative polarity licensing (that NPIs are licensed in the scope of downward entailing operators) continues to be the benchmark theory of negative polarity. In this paper, I consider some of the moves that are needed to maintain its basic intuition in some recalcitrant arenas: negative polarity licensing by only, adversatives, superlatives, and conditionals. W...

Today stringent customer demands, accelerated time-to-market schedules , and high levels of quality have put companies under pressure to adapt and modernize their product development processes. The ability to succeed over the long term on global markets depends in large part on keeping up with dynamic and constantly changing conditions. One way to meet these challenges is the organization of pr...

In this paper, we study the fuzzy front-end (FFE) of innovation in the context of temporary virtual project teams (VPTs). We argue that despite the importance of innovation for today’s organizations, and the prevalence of VPTs in most industries, there are no studies examining how the innovation process plays out in this context. We draw on two temporary VPTs (Saint-Germain and Los Innovadores)...

This paper provides a framework that links consumer efforts to commercial innovation. It seeks to answer the question why some firms are able to benefit from relations to their consumers. It proposes that (some) firms can improve their product development by organizing consumer communities and by relying on a critical mass of dedicated consumers. It shows how convergence between new technology ...

This paper describes research to examine the process of knowledge transfer between universities and industry, where the transfer of knowledge can be a valuable source of innovation for a company, in terms of new product development (radical innovation) but also as a source of knowledge for process or product improvement (incremental innovation). The view is adopted that the most useful knowledg...

The early phases of new product development (NPD) processes are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity, a phenomenon commonly recognized as the fuzzy front end of NPD. A clear understanding of the term fuzziness is lacking in NPD literature. This paper suggests that its components can be understood through earlier scholars’ use of concepts such as ambiguity, equivocality, l...

This report provides an insight into the technology of virtual prototyping and its application in the field of design, engineering, production and product development. The report reviews the concept of virtual and digital prototyping, discusses the historical developments and technology, explores some of the wider implications and benefits of the technology, details specific industry applicatio...