This book shows the patterns of the fuzzy front end of innovation and how it can be managed successfully. Topics in this book cover traditional instruments and processes such as technology monitoring, market-oriented research management, lead-user developments, but also modern approaches such as frontloading, user community-driven innovation, crowdsourcing, anthropological expeditions, technological listening posts in global R&D settings, cross-industry innovation processes, open innovation, and IP cycle management. Contributions are based on latest research and cases studies on this new paradigm. The authors investigate this phenomenon, linking the practice of the early innovation phase to the established body of innovation research. Conceptional articles complement case studies to provide the reader with insight on managing the fuzzy front end of innovation. Lessons learned with success factors and checklists complement each chapter.​

Europe is waking up to the challenge of technology and innovation. We see EU commitment to spend 3% of GDP on R&D, but who is thinking about how to spend? Who is thinking about technology management? Does the corporate board have the means to manage this spend? Should some percentage of the R&D be spent on improving technology and innovation management? This is where this book makes a contribution. It brings together the latest practice, research findings and thinking, presented in a way that addresses top management requirements. The goal is to secure the economic future of the firm, in the context of a sustainable industry and society. Using the ideas and methods in this book, the board can assess and improve its own ability to deal with the challenge of technology and innovation.

Alle Stadien der Produktentwicklung - von der Idee über Konzept, Design und Produktion bis hin zur Vermarktung und Wartung - werden in diesem Band zusammenfassend abgehandelt. Sie finden auch Hinweise zum Benchmarking des Entwicklungsprozesses und zum Management des Produktportfolios. Die Autoren sind Mitglieder der Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) und kommen von Unternehmen wie 3M, AT&T oder KPMG Peat Marwick.

Managers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists all seek to maximize the financial returns from innovation, and profits are driven largely by the quality of the opportunities they pursue. Based on a structured and process-driven approach this book demonstrates how to systematically identify exceptional opportunities for innovation. An innovation tournament, just like its counterpart in sports, starts with a large number of candidates, with opportunities as the players. These opportunities are pitted against each other until only the exceptional survive. This book provides a principled approach for the effective management of innovation tournaments - identifying a wealth of promising opportunities and then evaluating and filtering them intelligently for greatest profitability. With a set of practical tools for creating and identifying new opportunities, it guides the reader in evaluating and screening opportunities. The book demonstrates how to construct an innovation portfolio and how to align the innovation process with an organization's competitive strategy. Innovation Tournaments employs quirky, fresh examples ranging from movies to medical devices. The authors' tool kit is built on their extensive research, their entrepreneurial backgrounds, and their teaching and consulting work with many highly innovative organizations.

The management of technological innovation (MTI) is one of the most important challenges facing businesses today. Innovation has become the fundamental driver of competitiveness for firms of all sizes in virtually all business sectors and nations.The first edition of this book has become one of the most popular texts for students of innovation and technology management. This new edition sees David Gann and Ammon Salter join Mark Dodgson as authors, drawing on their combined experience of 60 years of researching and teaching MTI. It combines the most relevant theoretical analysis with contemporary and historical empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive, yet concise and readable, guide to the challenges of MTI.By explaining the innovation process the book reveals the broad scope of MTI and its importance for company survival, growth and sustainability. It describes how MTI has to be managed strategically and how this is successfully achieved by formulating and implementing strategy and delivering value. Chapters provide frameworks, tools and techniques, and case studies on managing: innovation strategy, communities, and networks, R&D, design and new product and service development, operationsand production, and commercialization.Based on robust analysis, the book provides a wide range of empirical evidence from a huge diversity of case studies, with around fifty case studies newly written for this edition. It analyses MTI in all parts of the world, in companies large and small, and in services, manufacturing, and resource-based business sectors.This new edition has been fully revised and updated to reflect the latest teaching and research, and to ensure its continuing relevance to the contemporary world of MTI. It will be an important resource for academics, students, and managers throughout the world, is a recommended text for students of innovation and technology management at postgraduate and undergraduate level, and is particularly valuable for MBA courses.

Production development is about improving existing production systems and developing new ones. The production system should be developed in integration with the product, as a part of the overall product realization process, and not in sequence after the product has already been designed. Production Development: Design and Operation of Production Systems takes a holistic viewpoint on the production system and its design process during the whole system life cycle. A working procedure demonstrating how to design and realize the production system is presented, together with a number of related production development aspects. Production Development: Design and Operation of Production Systems is illustrated with a large number of figures and industrial examples. The book can be used as a reference for teachers and students, or as a manual for professionals within the field of production.

Hardly anybody outside a company knows its products and processes better than its suppliers. Research confirms that intensive integration of suppliers in the value creation process positively influences the success of the company, particularly in highly competitive industries. This is a result of the progressing reduction in the depth of value creation of manufacturers and the increasing transfer of know-how towards suppliers. In multilevel business-to-business relationships, suppliers often have the best or the only access and comprehensive knowledge about the end users. Therefore, suppliers determine the scope of possible innovations, which most companies do not actively use. This unique volume provides a comprehensive overview of theories, concepts and especially empirical results on open innovation and the integration of suppliers. For this, authors from all over the world present their latest research results offering fascinating insights into collaborative approaches with suppliers.