Márcia Elisa Soares Echeveste

Factors influencing knowledge transfer between NPD teams: a taxonomic analysis based on a sociotechnical approach

This paper sets out a taxonomy of the main factors influencing knowledge transfer (KT) between new product development (NPD) teams, based upon a sociotechnical approach whose framework consists of personnel, technological, work design, and external environment subsystems. The taxonomy was constructed from a literature survey combined with: (1) interviews and focus groups conducted with NPD experts and (2) a principal component analysis applied to a survey of 82 companies. Such steps were necessary because of the large amount of data collected from the literature review. They combine extensive explanatory descriptions from qualitative analysis together with strong confirmatory results given by multivariate quantitative analysis. The final set of 16 main factors summarized more than 100 elements of the NPD environment that influence KT between NPD teams. The key contributions of the proposed taxonomy are: (1) It is the first proposal of an organized understanding about KT influence factors based on a systemic and sociotechnical perspective; (2) New variables emerge from such analysis; and (3) It helps to understand better the elements needed for KT management in the NPD process.

A framework for decision-making in investment alternatives selection

Investment alternatives selection involves a variety of criteria that should be evaluated to provide a solid basis for decision-making. Some prior research has proposed methodologies and frameworks to support such alternatives selection. However, many of them present intrinsic limitations related to their applicability and complexity. Thus, this paper presents a framework for decision-making concerning investment alternatives that are usually related to equipment selection for a manufacturing process, technology selection for product development, product portfolio selection, and production strategy selection, among others. The framework is based on a multi-criteria approach that considers three main criteria: (i) strategy, which considers company market competitiveness; (ii) quality, which considers client requirements; and (iii) economic aspects, considering the overall financial benefits of the investment. These criteria are evaluated with the support of well-known tools from traditional management engineering such as SWOT, QFD, NPV and Payback. The results obtained through the use of these tools are rated using the MAUT method. Two major contributions are offered by this framework: (i) the integration of three key criteria for decision-making that enables to obtain a balanced analysis of the investment alternatives and (ii) the intrinsic easy-to-implement characteristic of the framework – based on the use of traditional tools. The proposed framework was applied in a tailor-made furniture company to support a make-or-buy decision, and the obtained results are discussed.

New product development for mass customization: a systematic review

The incorporation of tools into New Product Development (NPD) process tends to contribute to the implementation of Mass Customization strategy in companies. Different knowledge areas – such as marketing, design and engineering – offer tools for different stages of product development. The specificity of those tools makes their selection and application to NPD process difficult. This paper aims at carrying out a literature review of applicable tools in respect to the NPD aimed at MC promotion. It also aims at identifying, according to its objective, its localization and application to NPD process. By means of a systematic review, 39 tools for NPD were identified. The results present bibliometrics on the tools, identify four tool clusters according to their contributions to product development, and also identify opportunities for research about the theme.

Knowledge transfer between NPD project teams

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for the identification of improvement opportunities in the knowledge transfer (KT) process between new product development (NPD) project teams. This method helps to prioritize which KT mechanisms of the company have to be improved and which other new mechanisms have to be implanted to reduce KT barriers and foster the KT process.Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method follows a structure based on the QFD and FMEA quality tools approaches. Thus, a set of matrices for the KT barriers and mechanisms prioritization is used.Findings – The presented results enabled the identification, inside the company, of the main points for the KT process improvement. The implementation of the suggestions was not started off until the conclusion of the present research. However, the problems identification and the generated discussions around these problems have already had an important repercussion in the project team. In this sense, the interviewees point...

Strategic Orientation Towards Sustainable Innovation: a Case Study in a Brazilian University

This article discusses Organizational Capabilities as the basic components of business models that emerged under the New Product Development Process and Technological Management. In the context of the new Technology Based Companies Development, it adopts a qualitative research in order to identify, analyze and underpin the organizational capability deployment in a process of technology conversion into product and service. The analysis was carried out considering concepts from literature review, in a technology based enterprise started by an academic spin-off company. The analysis enabled the elicitation of a Business Model and the discussion of their components, and correspondent evolution hypothesis. The paper provides an example of capability deployment accordingly the established theory illustrated by a case study. The study not just enumerate the needed partners, resources, customer channels, it enabled the description of their connection, representing the logic behind the decision made to develop the conceptual model. This detailed representation of the model allows better addressed discussions.

Proposta de um protocolo para o processamento de requisitos do cliente em empreendimentos habitacionais de interesse social

Several studies have pointed out the importance of client requirements management and the difficulties for implementing it in the construction industry due to the complex nature of its processes. In the low-income housing sector, final clients rarely take part directly in the product development process and for this reason their needs are usually not properly captured and translated into requirements, and consequently these are not properly considered by the design team. This requires important changes in the way the product development process is managed. This paper presents a study on requirements processing of a set of projects of the Residential Leasing Program. This study emphasizes the task of client requirements processing in this context, based on the integration of different sources of evidences, with the perceptions of different clients involved in the design. The main contribution of this investigation was the development of a protocol for requirements processing, which uses visual displays and the House of Quality tool, which support the systematic processing of client requirements data.

Identificação de práticas de gestão da segurança e saúde no trabalho em obras de construção civil

O setor da construcao civil apresenta indices de acidentes de trabalho mais elevados em relacao a maioria dos demais setores industriais. Melhorias nas praticas atuais de gestao da seguranca e saude no trabalho (SST) podem trazer beneficios como a preservacao da vida humana e o aumento da competitividade das empresas no mercado com a reducao dos custos decorrentes de acidentes, multas e embargos. Este artigo apresenta um levantamento e uma avaliacao do grau de implementacao das praticas de gestao em SST e a identificacao das dificuldades na implementacao destas praticas e no cumprimento das normas, na perspectiva dos responsaveis pela gestao da seguranca em empresas construtoras. Os dados foram coletados atraves da realizacao de uma survey , com questionarios aplicados nos canteiros de obra de 40 empresas do segmento de edificacoes residenciais de Porto Alegre (RS). Estes dados foram comparados com os resultados de uma survey similar realizada na Espanha com 20 empresas construtoras. Para analisar e classificar as praticas utilizaram-se tecnicas estatisticas de analise de componentes principais e multiplas respostas. Foram criadas cinco categorias de praticas de gestao da SST, sendo analisadas as praticas individuais mais utilizadas na amostra de empresas. Faz-se tambem uma comparacao entre as categorias de praticas mais utilizadas e a percepcao de importância por parte dos gerentes.

Avaliação do uso de prática de ecodesign nas indústrias do Rio Grande do Sul: um estudo introdutório

O momento historico atual demanda mudancas de comportamento quanto as questoes ambientais, fazendo com que dois aspectos fundamentais repercutam diretamente no desenvolvimento de produto das empresas: questoes internas de reciclagem e meios de processamento de residuos e questoes externas, como pressao do governo e do mercado. Normas governamentais de preservacao ao meio ambiente e a necessidade de manter vantagem competitiva, uma vez que o mercado, principalmente europeu, tem uma grande demanda por produtos verdes. No mercado brasileiro, a questao ambiental ainda nao e uma das prioridades, no entanto, para atender ao mercado globalizado, torna-se necessario incluir caracteristicas “verdes” ao produto, isto e desenvolver produtos considerando questoes ambientais nas fases de projeto. Projetos que incluam essas questoes sao chamados de ecodesign. Poucas pesquisas tem sido desenvolvidas no sentido de verificar o nivel de conscientizacao e o grau de desenvolvimento de produtos com esse enfoque. Esse artigo pretende analisar criterios que podem avaliar a adequacao ambiental de empresas e desenvolver um instrumento de coleta de dados capaz de levantar questoes relativas ao desenvolvimento de produtos segundo os principios de ecodesign. No final, sao tecidos alguns comentarios pertinentes a uma pesquisa realizada com empresas do estado do Rio Grande do Sul e e apresentado o instrumento de coleta de dados.

The benchmarking of the use of toolkit for mass customization in the automobile industry

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between the utilization of the customization strategy and the availability of the online toolkit and its features with the commercial variables of businesses. Design/methodology/approach The sample used in this paper consists of 134 cases of corporate brands in the automobile industry; their sales correspond to 49.12 percent of vehicles produced in 2012. The logistic regression analysis was then applied to the sample. Findings This paper confirmed the relationship between the use of toolkits for customization and business variables, like vehicle sales. Originality/value The generated model allows the prediction of market conditions which recommended to provide the toolkit for customization, and if implemented, what combination of features it must have.

When and How to use the online configurator in the Automobile Industry

In the Mass Customization (CM), the product configurator helps the customers to identify their individual needs and assists to transform these needs into a customized product. The objective of this paper is to verify relation between online configurators and their features with business variables of automobile companies. The sample consists of 134 automobile companies located in 31 different countries corresponding to 38.83% of the worldwide car production in 2008. The logistic regression (logit) confirmed the relation between online configurators and their features with the business variables. It also identifies the online configurations set of features correlating with an increase in the sale of vehicles.