Martin Steinert

Redefining customer value in lean product development design projects

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to suggest a redefinition of the functional product value calculation in lean product development (LPD). The proposed method integrates emotional customer value into the traditional model, which is based on minimizing operating costs and reducing time‐to‐market.Design/methodology/approach – Perceptions of customer value among employees at a Norwegian boat manufacturer, customers, and competitors are investigated through a case study. Results are compared with principles for promoting value and minimizing waste in LPD.Findings – Findings from the case study suggest that a less‐than‐perfect match between customer needs and product offerings sometimes improves customer satisfaction. Furthermore, how customers perceive product value depends on experience that may be at variance with current needs. It is also suggested that deep understanding of customer‐defined value does not imply an ability to satisfy that value.Research limitations/implications – Understanding the positio...

Perspectives on design creativity and innovation research

The aim of this extended editorial is to offer a perspective on design creativity and innovation research on the occasion of launching the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation. Thirty six members of the editorial board present their expectations, views, or opinions on the topics of the journal. All of these articles are presented in Section 2. In Section 3, summaries of the 36 articles are consolidated. This editorial also analyzes keywords from each of the articles, and the results are visualized in Section 4. The keyword analysis covers not only those words taken directly from each of the articles but also the implicit keywords that are suggested by the explicit ones. We believe this extended editorial will help the researchers, in particular young researchers, comprehend the essence of design creativity and innovation research and obtain a clue to tackle the new discipline.The aim of this extended editorial is to offer a perspective on design creativity and innovation research on the occasion of launching the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation. Thirty six members of the editorial board present their expectations, views, or opinions on the topics of the journal. All of these articles are presented in Section 2. In Section 3, summaries of the 36 articles are consolidated. This editorial also analyzes keywords from each of the articles, and the results are visualized in Section 4. The keyword analysis covers not only those words taken directly from each of the articles but also the implicit keywords that are suggested by the explicit ones. We believe this extended editorial will help the researchers, in particular young researchers, comprehend the essence of design creativity and innovation research and obtain a clue to tackle the new discipline.

Using prototypes to leverage knowledge in product development: Examples from the automotive industry

This article is rooted in the automotive industry as starting point, and discusses the topic of leveraging tacit knowledge through prototypes. The aim of this study is to make the case of using reflective and affirmative prototypes for knowledge creating and transferal in the product development process. After providing an overview on learning and knowledge, the Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization (SECI) model is discussed in detail, with a clear distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge. Based on this model, we propose a framework of using said reflective and affirmative prototypes in an external vs. internal learning/knowledge capturing and transferal setting. Rounded by two case examples from the automotive industry we end by identifying the emergent research questions and areas. Using prototypes and prototyping may hold a monumental potential to better capture and transfer knowledge in product development, thus leveraging existing integration events in engineering as a basis for knowledge transformation.

Bridging Tangible and Virtual Interaction: Rapid Prototyping of a Gaming Idea

The Fibo Car is an example for a game interface that allows a user to modify a virtual car in a racing game through assembling tangible car parts. This paper describes the 6 week development journey towards a fully functional proof of concept prototype, reflections on the process as well as the technical details of the prototype.

User-Centered Innovation for the Design and Development of Complex Products and Systems

In this chapter, we examine user interaction for the design and development of complex products and systems. Through a two-phase research effort, we explore and test the influence of user involvement (i.e. novice/average and expert/lead users) in early stage design and new product development.

From Lean Product Development To Lean Innovation: Searching For A More Valid Approach For Promoting Utilitarian And Emotional Value

This paper considers the role of lean product development (LPD) as part of a companys overall innovation strategy. Our discussion contends that the value-concept in LPD is too strongly tied to product features, and that this may lead to: (i) overemphasis on utilitarian value, (ii) preference for reliability over validity, and (iii) a defensive approach to market-trends. These factors can compromise the philosophys ability to maximize customer value, and represent a challenge in making LPD fit beyond incremental innovation in the technological domain. Lean innovation (LI) is therefore introduced as an extension of LPD, building on a value concept that embraces emotional as well as utilitarian characteristics. It is suggested that lean principles should not be limited to product development, but should concern all aspects of a companys innovation efforts relevant to offering a pleasurable customer experience.

Design Loupes: A Bifocal Study to Improve the Management of Engineering Design Innovation by Co-evaluation of the Design Process and Information Sharing Activity

After having identified the existence and having conceptually modeled the nature of general design loupes in the past year’s project, this year’s focus lies on the systematic exploration of the individual designer’s inherent reflective loupe. Based on analyzing artifacts, surveying experts, conducting inductive and deductive conceptual framing rounds, and observing controlled explorative experiments we were able to: (1) show the existence of reflective loupes; (2) identify actual practices in use by designers; (3) use reflective practices as meaningful proxies for reflective loupes that are not directly observable; and (4) create, capture and analyze concrete reflective practices in the controlled experimental environment of a laboratory. We next proceed to build upon these results to deepen our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms of reflective design loupes.

Cognition as a measure of team diversity

Project-based learning in teams has been increasingly prevalent in engineering and design education, as it affords unique collaborative learning opportunities. Though many believe that diversity on a team allows for the richest learning experiences and perhaps the most innovative outcomes, this has been difficult to show experimentally, particularly when diversity is measured according to standard ethnographic factors (such as race, gender, etc.). We propose that a more meaningful measure of team diversity may be “cognitive diversity,” or the breadth of problem solving styles that is inherent to the team. These problem solving styles are determined by measuring the cognitive preferences of individual students with psychometric survey instruments. In this paper, we describe a method by which this individual psychometric data can be reconstructed as a measure of team cognitive diversity, and present our findings as applied to an international graduate-level engineering design course. Our findings include the positive result that there is substantial cognitive diversity even in populations with relatively little ethnographic diversity (e.g. a class of incoming Masters students with largely similar age, work experience and socioeconomic background). Furthermore, there is evidence that these cognitive characteristics can be linked to long-term team dynamics and performance. Understanding how cognition affects learning and collaboration will help us to craft more informed team learning experiences and to form better, more innovative design engineering teams in academia and industry.

The Origins of Design Thinking and the Relevance in Software Innovations

This paper argues that the methods used in the trending buzzword Design Thinking have deeper roots and bigger application potential, beyond product development IDEO and the Stanford University d.school style. The conscious combination of these Design Thinking methods and rapid iteration sessions is also of value when deploying it to software development. It is a powerful approach for requirement discovery and hence becomes relevant when developing novel solutions. This argument is supported by the case of SAP AppHaus and their experience on implementing the Design Thinking process for HANA related software development. Here Design Thinking forces to holistically explore a solution space with the customer, but also to bring different internal disciplines together early. Hence anybody who is interested in software innovations might want to consider the core ideas behind Design Thinking.

A Simultaneous, Multidisciplinary Development and Design Journey – Reflections on Prototyping

This paper proposes a wayfaring approach for the early concept creation stage of development projects that have a very high degree of intended innovation and thus uncertainty. The method is supported by a concrete game design example involving the development of a tangible programming interface for virtual car racing games. We focus onto projects that not only have high degrees of freedom, for example in terms of reframing the problem or iterating the final project vision, but are also complex in nature. For example, these can be projects that allow for the exploration and exploitation of unknown unknowns and serendipity findings. Process wise we are primarily focusing onto the early stage that precedes the requirement fixation, which we see as more dynamic and evolutionary in nature. The core conceptual elements that we have derived from the development experiences are: simultaneous prototyping in multiple disciplines (such as computer science, electronics and mechanics and engineering in general, abductive learning based on the outcome of rapid cycles of designing, building and testing prototypes (probing), and the importance of includingall the involved disciplines (knowledge domains) from the beginning of the project on.