Åsa Ericson

Knowledge-Sharing Network for Product-Service System Development: Is it atypical?

The move towards offering Product-Service Systems (PSS) requires the involvement of stakeholders from different companies, possessing knowledge about the different product lifecycle phases. This setting poses unique challenges for traditional product manufacturers, which need to rearrange transaction-based relationships into long-term relationships of co-development. Knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries is, therefore, considered as a key enabler for the development of profitable PSS. The paper is based on a social network tie perspective, and its purpose is to describe and exemplify knowledge-sharing network for PSS development—in order to describe the impact of the shift toward PSS development on companies’ relationships and responsibilities. Based on the findings from two research projects involving various partners from the aerospace industry, the paper concludes that the development of profitable PSS relies on the development of strong and weak ties across the supply network. Finally, a five stages model of the evolution of tie strength is proposed for classifying relationships within the PSS knowledge-sharing network.

The rise of social product development

The aim of the paper is to discuss the rising potential of social software to increase the knowledge management capabilities of virtual product development teams. It presents six fundamental transitions, elaborated from the empirical findings, which justify the rise of a more bottom-up, social creation and sharing of engineering knowledge in the virtual organisation. The study suggests that traditional engineering knowledge management approaches alone are not sufficient to support development activities in the virtual organisation, and that such teams display an increasing demand for social, comparatively lightweight and remixable platforms for bottom-up, social creation and sharing of knowledge.

On the way to knowledge awareness in early design

This paper discusses views on decision support in product development to identify factors of relevance when designing computer-based decision support for total offers. Providing services in form of physical artefacts offered as ‘functions per unit’ is at the heart of total offers. Total offers gain access to possibilities to ‘design in’ value added characteristics into the physical artefact, e.g., maintenance, monitoring, training, remanufacture. Contemporary computer tools seem to be insufficient to support a GO/NO GO decision for total offers. Relevant factors to take into consideration are to support learning and provide the decision makers with insights in a number of plausible ‘what-if’ scenarios to improve the solution space.

People, product and process perspectives on product/service-system development

The adaptation of Product/Service-Systems (PSS) calls for new development models. On one hand this gives the manufacturing firm possibilities to redesign, upgrade and replace the discrete device that provides the performance their customers are asking for. On the other hand, this new situation has to address aspects that are normally not addressed in early product development, i.e., services. In this chapter, we elaborate on product and service development process models, as well as system models to propose a frame of reference for multiple perspectives on PSS development. These perspectives are of people, product and process. Also, this chapter puts forward implications for the development of PSS models.

Collaboration in automotive winter testing : real-time simulations boosting innovation opportunities

The performance of cars has during recent years become increasingly dependent on complex electronic systems used especially for safety but also comfort, performance and informatics. Automotive winter testing activities in northern Sweden is vital to test and try out those systems. A contradiction to increased performance is that faulty software also causes 30 % of severe malfunctions in the functionality of the car. To deal with these problems, as early in the design process as possible, innovative methods to cope with digital abstraction and the physical world in a unified way seems promising. One useful approach, in automotive winter testing, might be to support the possibilities for real-time vehicle simulations of the car in motion.

Realization of open innovation : a case study in manufacturing industry

Continuous innovation is regarded as an imperative for most companies. In this regard, open innovation suggests a successful approach to new product development, wherein the emphasis is on external collaboration. Previous research has provided examples from some industries, whereas mature and traditional companies such as manufacturing firms have gained limited interest. Thus, this paper seeks to answer two critical questions: why should manufacturing companies shift toward open innovation approaches and how can they adopt open innovation for product development. Based on case study in two companies, a list of opportunities, challenges, and efforts for organizational change toward open innovation are discussed.

Sharing Expertise: Easier Said Than Done

An extension towards service provision takes place in manufacturing industry. Inclusion of softer service aspects indicates that the common view on knowledge management to control and monitor a technical process have limitations. Sharing expertise is an additional way of managing knowledge particularly with the intentions to make experience based knowledge organizational available. By studying product developers’ daily work, especially how they perceive that they apply and share knowledge, we problematize knowledge activities in product-service development to discuss the established knowledge management activities. The paper suggests some considerations to support the development of a knowledge base for product-service design.

Collaboration in automotive winter testing

The performance of cars has during recent years become increasingly dependent on complex electronic systems used especially for safety but also comfort, performance and informatics. Automotive winter testing activities in northern Sweden is vital to test and try out those systems. A contradiction to increased performance is that faulty software also causes 30 % of severe malfunctions in the functionality of the car. To deal with these problems, as early in the design process as possible, innovative methods to cope with digital abstraction and the physical world in a unified way seems promising. One useful approach, in automotive winter testing, might be to support the possibilities for real-time vehicle simulations of the car in motion.

ADDRESSING TEAM BASED INNOVATION FOR SMALL FIRMS - CREATE, BUILD, TEST & LEARN

The Create-Build-Test-Learn supports toolbox for engineering concept development motivates not only experimentation, but also instils design thinking in teams. By offering tools and methods for rec ...

Improving Team Activities in the Concept Development Stages: Addressing Radical Development and Open-Ended Problems

ABSTRACT Firms seeking radical innovation require development teams to articulate design solutions based on open-ended problems. Such problems have no single answer to the problematical situation, but have several plausible solutions. Although prior studies have highlighted the importance of prototyping or other methodologies, they provide limited guidance toward addressing open-ended problems. We investigate how teams make sense of complex design and development problems in order to benefit innovative endeavors. The results illustrate a team-level concept development model that identifies critical stages, associated activities, and influencing mind-set to explain how engineering teams overcome challenges associated with open-ended problems.