Kah-Hin Chai

A Triz-Based Method for New Service Design

This article demonstrates the viability of applying the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) to services by proposing a new approach to new service design. Traditionally, the effectiveness of new service design is unpredictable as service design relies largely on inspiration and the past experiences of service designers. By integrating TRIZ problem-solving tools and its knowledge base, the authors propose a new TRIZ-based approach to address this weakness in service design. Through two case studies, the proposed model is verified. This demonstrates the relevance of TRIZ to service design. It is hoped that this article will raise awareness among service researchers so that more studies in this direction are conducted.

A dynamic model for managing overlapped iterative product development

Intense competition in many industries impels firms to develop more products in less time. Overlapping of development activities is regarded as one of the most promising strategies to reduce project cycle time. However, the gain from overlapping must be weighed against the additional resource and time for rework. This paper presents a new product development (NPD) process model, termed Dynamic Development Process Model (DDPM), for managing overlapped iterative product development. We validated the model with data from a mobile phone development project. The DDPM was employed to identify appropriate policies for the overlapped iterative projects in the case study company. These identified policies were implemented in the company and led to marked improvement in project performance, thus demonstrating the viability of our model.

An exploratory study of the use of quality tools and techniques in product development

Purpose – The exploratory paper investigates the reasons for the adoption or non‐adoption of quality tools in industry. Although quality tools such as statistical process control and failure mode effect analysis are commonly practiced in manufacturing, the same cannot be said for product development.Design/methodology/approach – We adopted a case study approach in this study, which has been found to be the more suitable approach for exploratory research. Semi‐structured interviews ranging from half an hour to one and a half hours were conducted with seven industrialists and three academics. These industrialists are R&D managers, product development managers, project managers and engineers who have been involved in new product development (NPD) in one way or another.Findings – Building on previous studies, the study identified two categories of factor affecting the adoption of quality tools: internal and external factors. User‐friendliness, usefulness, time, monetary cost, flexibility and popularity of the...

Research themes, concepts and relationships: A study of International Journal of Service Industry Management (1990-2005)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the core themes of service research by analysing citations in the International Journal of Service Industry Management (IJSIM). It also aims to discuss changes in the discipline’s sub-fields and identifies emerging topics.Design/methodology/approach - The paper is an empirical analysis of citations and co-citations from the IJSIM. Network and factor analysis are used to analyse and group the data. The study is unique in performing the analysis at the individual publication level, rather than following the normal aggregated author co-citation analysis method.Research limitations/implications - The study examines only IJISM. Future study on other top journal such as Journal of Service Research would provide a more complete picture on service research.Findings - The study identifies that the core ideas of service research centred on service quality and customer satisfaction. Also identified are periphery areas which may become more significant. Originality/value – The main contribution of this article is the use of the novel network analysis technique to analyze the 15,003 citations in the 435 articles published in IJSIM between 1990-2005. This is a quantitative analysis unlike previous review articles which rely largely on the observations and reflections of pioneering researchers.

The Application of New Product Development Tools in Industry: The Case of Singapore

Literature suggests that new product development (NPD) is critical for industrial firms to gain a competitive advantage. Intriguingly, the systematic application of NPD tools in industry, despite the extensive effort that has been invested and the benefits that can be obtained, remains mostly uncommon. By conducting ten semi-structured interviews with selected academics and industrialists and using a sample of 67 industrial firms in Singapore for questionnaire survey, this empirical study investigates the diffusion and adoption of NPD tools in industry. It also probes the factors which may affect the application of NPD tools. Our findings reveal that the application of NPD tools is still under-exploited in most of the industrial companies in Singapore. Although the application of NPD tools is affected by many factors, the most significant are management support in the company and the innovativeness orientation of the company. Surprisingly, we found that the usefulness of tools has little influence on whether a tool is adopted or not

A robust high-throughput sandwich cell-based drug screening platform

Hepatotoxicity evaluation of pharmaceutical lead compounds in early stages of drug development has drawn increasing attention. Sandwiched hepatocytes exhibiting stable functions in culture represent a standard model for hepatotoxicity testing of drugs. We have developed a robust and high-throughput hepatotoxicity testing platform based on the sandwiched hepatocytes for drug screening. The platform involves a galactosylated microfabricated membrane sandwich to support cellular function through uniform and efficient mass transfer while protecting cells from excessive shear. Perfusion bioreactor further enhances mass transfer and cellular functions over long period; and hepatocytes are readily transferred to 96-well plate for high-throughput robotic liquid handling. The bioreactor design and perfusion flow rate are optimized by computational fluid dynamics simulation and experimentally. The cultured hepatocytes preserved 3D cell morphology, urea production and cytochrome p450 activity of the mature hepatocytes for 14 days. When the perfusion-cultured sandwich is transferred to 96-well plate for drug testing, the hepatocytes exhibited improved drug sensitivity and low variability in hepatotoxicity responses amongst cells transferred from different dates of perfusion culture. The platform enables robust high-throughput screening of drug candidates.

Optimal overlapping and functional interaction in product development

Overlapping of development stages and interaction between different functions are regarded as important strategies for reducing development lead time. However, overlapping typically requires additional costs for rework and functional interaction increases communication time. This paper presents an analytical model to improve project performance by balancing the positive and negative effects of overlapping and functional interaction. We first investigate the progress of downstream development, which is essential to derive the optimal overlapping policies. We find that the downstream progress increases over time when the upstream evolution is fast or linear, but it is indefinite when the upstream evolution is slow. Then, we present optimal overlapping policies taking into account the complexity of downstream progress. The impact of different project properties, such as the dependency between development stages and the opportunity cost of time, on overlapping policies is discussed. Finally, we derive the optimal functional interaction strategy when the optimal overlapping is followed. The methodology is illustrated with a case study at a handset design company.

Quantitative analysis of quality management literature published in total quality management and business excellence (1996–2010)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate core themes in the quality management research area through a quantitative analysis of research papers published in the journal Total Quality Management and Business Excellence. The study analyses the bibliographies in the published papers in addition to conventional literature reviews. The methodologies applied include bibliometrics and social network techniques. The analysis shows relationships between different publications and the developments over three periods. Core research themes are found to be service quality measurement, customer satisfaction, total quality management (TQM) implementation and effects. Emerging themes are also identified and include establishing customer relations and perceived quality of service, quality cost, comparison studies and empirical studies of TQM effects. The development of the research themes over the three pre-defined periods is also discussed.

Balancing codification and personalization for knowledge reuse: a Markov decision process approach

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a systematic framework for organizations to analyze their knowledge reuse processes, and balance codification and personalization within their knowledge strategy according to cost/benefit analysis. Design/methodology/approach – This paper divides knowledge reuse process into a sequence of five stages, and accordingly analyzes costs/benefits under codification and personalization strategies. Markov decision process, a mathematical framework for multi-stage decision-making, is employed to optimize a mixed strategy for knowledge reuse processes within an organization. Findings – Organizations need to consider factors such as the number of reusable knowledge items, reuse patterns, and intra-organizational interest alignment which are critical to determine their optimal mix between codification and personalization. Companies should determine a knowledge strategy based on their knowledge reuse contexts instead of following success cases blindly. Research limitations/implicat...

Organizational adoption of new service development tools

Purpose – A number of new service development (NSD) tools have been proposed to facilitate NSD processes. Despite the proved values, NSD tools are not used frequently. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usage pattern of NSD tools and to identify the factors that influence their adoption.Design/methodology/approach – By integrating the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the literature on organizational adoption of innovation, a framework was developed. Empirical data from financial institutions in Singapore and Taiwan were collected. Partial least squares was used to test the model comprising both reflective and formative constructs.Findings – The framework shows satisfactory predictive power. Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behaviour control are significantly related to behaviour intention. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are antecedents of attitude. Competitive pressure influences subjective norm. Perceived behaviour control is determined by compatibility and resou...