New product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. Companies typically see NPD as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products, and it usually involves several steps, namely idea generation, product design, product engineering, market research and marketing analysis. NPD is seen as a key factor in determining company success in today’s competitive arena. This is mainly due to three reasons: first, the increasing international competition; second, the fragmenting and demanding markets; third the diverse and changing technologies (Bigliardi et al., 2010). Therefore, greater focus has been placed on NPD and organizations have been forced to embrace NPD as an integral part of their corporate strategy, as well as on offering products that are adapted to the needs of target customers in order to create a sustainable competitive advantage and to stay ahead of the competition. Supply chain management (SCM), describes the discipline of optimizing the delivery of goods, services and related information from supplier to customer. An efficient supply chain network includes the firm’s internal functions (that is, all transformation processes and internal logistics ones), but also its upstream suppliers, and its downstream distribution channels reaching the end customers (that is, distributors and retailers). Thus, since NPD involves interaction with organizations within and outside the primary manufacturing organization at all stages of the product development process, interaction between NPD and SCM is now understood to be a crucial success factor. These issues are extremely actual and relevant for industry; therefore, academics and researchers in both these fields are devoting increasing attention to it. Indeed, management literature has been focusing on both NPD and SCM processes, but only recently researchers have started to devote attention to the issue of how to align the decisions in these two domains (Hult and Swan, 2003; Rungtusanatham and Forza, 2005; Pero et al., 2010). Based on these premises, the aim for this special issue was to provide a collection of papers that provide significant new insights into integration among NPD and SCM. The special issue includes both an extended version of the best papers presented at the GIC-PRODESC conference, held in Milan (Italy) on December 1st-2nd, 2011, and regular papers focussing on the relationships between NPD and SCM. Out of the whole number of submissions received, both as regular papers and as full-length conference papers, after review we accepted 12 papers for publication in the special issue. Such papers address a wide range of topics related to field of NPD and SCM, and can be grouped into three main sets, depending on the topics examined, namely: (i) the involvement of different SC actors in the NPD process, (ii) the optimal design of the supply chain, and (iii) the management of supply chain complexity in NPD. In the first group of works, Bigliardi, Bottani and Rinaldi shed light on how ETO companies organize the NPD process and assure supplier, customer and internal functions integration in the NPD process. To this aim, seven case studies, in the mechanical industry in Italy, have been studied to outline the phases performed, the techniques used, and the actors involved in the NPD process in the companies. A general NPD process has been defined, and interesting insights on human resources involvement and the skills required for each steps are provided. Pero and Lamberti explore the marketing-supply chain management (M-SCM) interface in New Product Development (NPD) processes according to some contextual factors drawn by the literature. NPD processes of two divisions of the Italian branch of a multi-national company operating in the electric devices industry have been studied. Different configurations of the Marketing-Research & Development (R&D)-SCM interface have been observed. Their results suggest that supply- and demand-side uncertainty, product innovativeness, market orientation, trust and absorptive capacity influence the way through which Marketing, R&D and SCM departments interact. Purvis et al. explore the role of trade intermediaries in agile global markets, such as the fashion industry. In particular, they focus on the practices adopted by trade intermediaries in order to reduce costs and compress time along supply chain activities, and enhance the level of agility. They analyze 2 primary UK companies, operating as high street fashion retailers, through as many exploratory case studies. As a result, the author provide empirical evidence on the role of trade intermediaries in increasing supply chain performance along two dimensions, such as the total supply chain lead time and total supply chain costs. Finally, Bolton, Brun and Chinneck investigate the benefits of SCM-Design Management (DM) alignment and the negative consequences of poor alignment among SCM and DM, and they explore, by means of case studies, how companies attempt to align SCM and DM. Their results suggest that SCM-DM alignment improve innovation capabilities by enhancing companies’ ability to listen and look for innovation opportunities along the Supply Chain, communicate innovation and encourage new innovation effort. Among the papers focusing on the optimal design of supply chains, Corti et al. propose a framework for integrating supply chain design with product considerations. The framework is conceived to allow identifying the challenges and requirements imposed by a certain design paradigm, specify which supply chain actors are impacted by each enabling factor and finally to describe in details which kind of modifications should be implemented by each supply chain actor to ensure the effective adoption of the new production paradigm. A similar topic is addressed by Falsini et al.. These authors work on the problem of supply network design (in particular, facility location) to support the definition and diffusion of a new product. They propose an integrated optimization model, which support the decision of warehouse positioning in concert with the demand dynamics during the diffusion stage of an innovative product/service. A real case application, dealing with the problem of network design with 1,400 potential market points and 28 alternatives locations for logistics platforms, is presented and solved through the proposed model. Bottani et al. address the problem of supply chain design coupled with inventory decisions. Supply chain should be designed taking into account the new product features, among which demand seasonality and stochasticity, and suppliers’ lead time. To support managers in taking supply chain design decisions, the authors investigate how logistics costs, service level, and bullwhip effect are affected by demand seasonality and stochasticity, and suppliers’ lead time, under different stock management policies and for a given level of safety stocks. To this aim, a simulation model was built and run using data coming from the fast moving consumer goods sector. Interesting insights on the effect on service level and costs have been obtained, as well as on how to reduce costs by defining the level of safety stocks depending on the characteristics of the supply network. Göpfert and Schulz investigate the issue of supply chain design during the product emergence process. By means of 25 interviews carried out with logisticians operating in German car manufacturing companies, the authors aim at highlighting the impact of some product design activities (e.g., definition of product structure, make-or-buy decision, selection of main suppliers and carrier planning) on the main supply chain decisions, as well as on the resulting product features. Several example of finished products, taken from the car manufacturing industry, are proposed and discussed. Finally, Kammoun analyses the role played by firm structural characteristics (e.g., size, R&D expenditures, age of firms, ownership and qualification of human capital) and market characteristics (e.g., market structure, sectors, exportation, networking and science-industry linkage) in innovation activities. Based on a survey on 586 Tunisian firms, the research shows that the relationship between innovation and skill level is stronger for product innovation which is ‘new-to-the-market’ rather than ‘new-to-the-firm’ and process innovation. It is found that technically qualified manpower is needed to absorb new technologies, modify them, create and develop new products, particularly scientists and engineers. Second, R&D expenditures are important for product innovation. Third, forming co-operative arrangements with other firms or institutions still appear to be important for innovating firms. And finally, high levels of concentration in the market are the most conducive to process innovation. In the third group of papers, the work by Grussenmeyer and Blecker analyses the problem of managing NPD project complexity. Various approaches exist to complexity management and different methods have been propose to tackle complexity. In order to build and evaluate a complexity management method for NPD project, the requirements of it should be defined. The paper identifies the different possible requirements and assesses their relative importance by means of a survey among experts in the field. Results suggest that the approach to complexity management depends on the architecture of the product that is developed within the NPD project. Hashemi et al. develop a methodological framework for building a better understanding of supply chain complexity. The framework includes several new product development issues (e.g., product design and product demand characteristics) that may affect the level of supply chain complexity, this latter described as a combination of configuration, collaboration and coordination issues. For both the product characteristics and the supply chain complexity, several constructs and their measurement items are proposed, and testable hypotheses for validation of the framework are also suggested. The framework can represent the basis for assisting in the alignment of product design and product demand with supply chain design. Bandinelli et al. investigate in their study if and how NPD division can develop unique products, difficult or even impossible to replicate, and how it can help customers in the identification of authentic goods versus fake ones. With this purpose in mind, they investigate one of the area most affected by the counterfeiting phenomena, that is the luxury market, and they develop a qualitative and quantitative methodology, called Design for Authenticity (DfA). The methodology developed aims to protect the authenticity of a product in all the stages of its life cycle, with a special regard to the aspects related to the authenticity of the product. Thanks to the variety of topics addressed, we believe that this special issue provides the scientific community with valuable information and knowledge in the field of NPD and SCM. The value-added by a special issue is only as good as the contributions of the manuscripts it receives, and the quality of the feedback provided by its reviewers. We are very grateful to all the authors, who supported this special issue through their contributions. We are also indebted to the reviewers, who helped us in managing the papers received in a timely manner and provided useful and professional reports about the papers. Finally, we would like to thank the Editor in Chief of International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, which gave us the possibility of organizing the special issue and helped us in its successful completion.

Guest editorial from: International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, special issue on "Interdependencies between New Product Development and Supply Chain Management" / Bigliardi, Barbara; Thorsten, Blecker; Bottani, Eleonora; Margherita, Pero; Andrea, Sianesi. - 5(2):(2013), pp. i-iii.

Guest editorial from: International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, special issue on "Interdependencies between New Product Development and Supply Chain Management"

BIGLIARDI, Barbara;BOTTANI, Eleonora;
2013-01-01

Abstract

New product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. Companies typically see NPD as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products, and it usually involves several steps, namely idea generation, product design, product engineering, market research and marketing analysis. NPD is seen as a key factor in determining company success in today’s competitive arena. This is mainly due to three reasons: first, the increasing international competition; second, the fragmenting and demanding markets; third the diverse and changing technologies (Bigliardi et al., 2010). Therefore, greater focus has been placed on NPD and organizations have been forced to embrace NPD as an integral part of their corporate strategy, as well as on offering products that are adapted to the needs of target customers in order to create a sustainable competitive advantage and to stay ahead of the competition. Supply chain management (SCM), describes the discipline of optimizing the delivery of goods, services and related information from supplier to customer. An efficient supply chain network includes the firm’s internal functions (that is, all transformation processes and internal logistics ones), but also its upstream suppliers, and its downstream distribution channels reaching the end customers (that is, distributors and retailers). Thus, since NPD involves interaction with organizations within and outside the primary manufacturing organization at all stages of the product development process, interaction between NPD and SCM is now understood to be a crucial success factor. These issues are extremely actual and relevant for industry; therefore, academics and researchers in both these fields are devoting increasing attention to it. Indeed, management literature has been focusing on both NPD and SCM processes, but only recently researchers have started to devote attention to the issue of how to align the decisions in these two domains (Hult and Swan, 2003; Rungtusanatham and Forza, 2005; Pero et al., 2010). Based on these premises, the aim for this special issue was to provide a collection of papers that provide significant new insights into integration among NPD and SCM. The special issue includes both an extended version of the best papers presented at the GIC-PRODESC conference, held in Milan (Italy) on December 1st-2nd, 2011, and regular papers focussing on the relationships between NPD and SCM. Out of the whole number of submissions received, both as regular papers and as full-length conference papers, after review we accepted 12 papers for publication in the special issue. Such papers address a wide range of topics related to field of NPD and SCM, and can be grouped into three main sets, depending on the topics examined, namely: (i) the involvement of different SC actors in the NPD process, (ii) the optimal design of the supply chain, and (iii) the management of supply chain complexity in NPD. In the first group of works, Bigliardi, Bottani and Rinaldi shed light on how ETO companies organize the NPD process and assure supplier, customer and internal functions integration in the NPD process. To this aim, seven case studies, in the mechanical industry in Italy, have been studied to outline the phases performed, the techniques used, and the actors involved in the NPD process in the companies. A general NPD process has been defined, and interesting insights on human resources involvement and the skills required for each steps are provided. Pero and Lamberti explore the marketing-supply chain management (M-SCM) interface in New Product Development (NPD) processes according to some contextual factors drawn by the literature. NPD processes of two divisions of the Italian branch of a multi-national company operating in the electric devices industry have been studied. Different configurations of the Marketing-Research & Development (R&D)-SCM interface have been observed. Their results suggest that supply- and demand-side uncertainty, product innovativeness, market orientation, trust and absorptive capacity influence the way through which Marketing, R&D and SCM departments interact. Purvis et al. explore the role of trade intermediaries in agile global markets, such as the fashion industry. In particular, they focus on the practices adopted by trade intermediaries in order to reduce costs and compress time along supply chain activities, and enhance the level of agility. They analyze 2 primary UK companies, operating as high street fashion retailers, through as many exploratory case studies. As a result, the author provide empirical evidence on the role of trade intermediaries in increasing supply chain performance along two dimensions, such as the total supply chain lead time and total supply chain costs. Finally, Bolton, Brun and Chinneck investigate the benefits of SCM-Design Management (DM) alignment and the negative consequences of poor alignment among SCM and DM, and they explore, by means of case studies, how companies attempt to align SCM and DM. Their results suggest that SCM-DM alignment improve innovation capabilities by enhancing companies’ ability to listen and look for innovation opportunities along the Supply Chain, communicate innovation and encourage new innovation effort. Among the papers focusing on the optimal design of supply chains, Corti et al. propose a framework for integrating supply chain design with product considerations. The framework is conceived to allow identifying the challenges and requirements imposed by a certain design paradigm, specify which supply chain actors are impacted by each enabling factor and finally to describe in details which kind of modifications should be implemented by each supply chain actor to ensure the effective adoption of the new production paradigm. A similar topic is addressed by Falsini et al.. These authors work on the problem of supply network design (in particular, facility location) to support the definition and diffusion of a new product. They propose an integrated optimization model, which support the decision of warehouse positioning in concert with the demand dynamics during the diffusion stage of an innovative product/service. A real case application, dealing with the problem of network design with 1,400 potential market points and 28 alternatives locations for logistics platforms, is presented and solved through the proposed model. Bottani et al. address the problem of supply chain design coupled with inventory decisions. Supply chain should be designed taking into account the new product features, among which demand seasonality and stochasticity, and suppliers’ lead time. To support managers in taking supply chain design decisions, the authors investigate how logistics costs, service level, and bullwhip effect are affected by demand seasonality and stochasticity, and suppliers’ lead time, under different stock management policies and for a given level of safety stocks. To this aim, a simulation model was built and run using data coming from the fast moving consumer goods sector. Interesting insights on the effect on service level and costs have been obtained, as well as on how to reduce costs by defining the level of safety stocks depending on the characteristics of the supply network. Göpfert and Schulz investigate the issue of supply chain design during the product emergence process. By means of 25 interviews carried out with logisticians operating in German car manufacturing companies, the authors aim at highlighting the impact of some product design activities (e.g., definition of product structure, make-or-buy decision, selection of main suppliers and carrier planning) on the main supply chain decisions, as well as on the resulting product features. Several example of finished products, taken from the car manufacturing industry, are proposed and discussed. Finally, Kammoun analyses the role played by firm structural characteristics (e.g., size, R&D expenditures, age of firms, ownership and qualification of human capital) and market characteristics (e.g., market structure, sectors, exportation, networking and science-industry linkage) in innovation activities. Based on a survey on 586 Tunisian firms, the research shows that the relationship between innovation and skill level is stronger for product innovation which is ‘new-to-the-market’ rather than ‘new-to-the-firm’ and process innovation. It is found that technically qualified manpower is needed to absorb new technologies, modify them, create and develop new products, particularly scientists and engineers. Second, R&D expenditures are important for product innovation. Third, forming co-operative arrangements with other firms or institutions still appear to be important for innovating firms. And finally, high levels of concentration in the market are the most conducive to process innovation. In the third group of papers, the work by Grussenmeyer and Blecker analyses the problem of managing NPD project complexity. Various approaches exist to complexity management and different methods have been propose to tackle complexity. In order to build and evaluate a complexity management method for NPD project, the requirements of it should be defined. The paper identifies the different possible requirements and assesses their relative importance by means of a survey among experts in the field. Results suggest that the approach to complexity management depends on the architecture of the product that is developed within the NPD project. Hashemi et al. develop a methodological framework for building a better understanding of supply chain complexity. The framework includes several new product development issues (e.g., product design and product demand characteristics) that may affect the level of supply chain complexity, this latter described as a combination of configuration, collaboration and coordination issues. For both the product characteristics and the supply chain complexity, several constructs and their measurement items are proposed, and testable hypotheses for validation of the framework are also suggested. The framework can represent the basis for assisting in the alignment of product design and product demand with supply chain design. Bandinelli et al. investigate in their study if and how NPD division can develop unique products, difficult or even impossible to replicate, and how it can help customers in the identification of authentic goods versus fake ones. With this purpose in mind, they investigate one of the area most affected by the counterfeiting phenomena, that is the luxury market, and they develop a qualitative and quantitative methodology, called Design for Authenticity (DfA). The methodology developed aims to protect the authenticity of a product in all the stages of its life cycle, with a special regard to the aspects related to the authenticity of the product. Thanks to the variety of topics addressed, we believe that this special issue provides the scientific community with valuable information and knowledge in the field of NPD and SCM. The value-added by a special issue is only as good as the contributions of the manuscripts it receives, and the quality of the feedback provided by its reviewers. We are very grateful to all the authors, who supported this special issue through their contributions. We are also indebted to the reviewers, who helped us in managing the papers received in a timely manner and provided useful and professional reports about the papers. Finally, we would like to thank the Editor in Chief of International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, which gave us the possibility of organizing the special issue and helped us in its successful completion.
2013
Guest editorial from: International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, special issue on "Interdependencies between New Product Development and Supply Chain Management" / Bigliardi, Barbara; Thorsten, Blecker; Bottani, Eleonora; Margherita, Pero; Andrea, Sianesi. - 5(2):(2013), pp. i-iii.
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