| New Product Development, Product Platforms, and Appropriate Metrics |
| | Khurana, Anil | Boston U. | akhurana@bu.edu | 617-353-2287 |
| | Vidal, Patricia | Boston U. | patvidal@bu.edu | 617-353-4282 |
| | Platform development, product families, or pipeline management is an emerging concept in new product development (NPD) practice and research. While the logic for using a "platform approach" is convincing, the question of effectiveness remains. An even more important issue is the need for modifying organizational systems, including incentives and metrics. In this paper, we compare the effectiveness of platform development projects with that of traditional NPD projects. We use survey data focused on the "Front-End" of new product development for our analysis. We find that adoption of product platforms is not clearly associated with better performance; platform projects are perceived to be less successful even on product/ market and strategic dimensions! We argue that this reflects the shortcomings of traditional measures, on-going learning regarding platform practices, and misunderstandings regarding the adoption of the platform concept itself, rather than shortcomings in platform projects themselves. This highlights the need for metrics that are more appropriate for assessing platform development; we propose that four different set of metrics are essential - strategic, operational, product and market, and leverage. Our analysis does suggest that platform projects could substantially leverage resources and NPD efforts; these are examples of specific "platform metrics" (Meyer, Tertzakian, Utterback, 1996). |
| | Keywords: Product Development; Performance Metrics; Effectiveness through Platform |
| Benchmarking Staffing Practices in a Multi-Site Service Environment |
| | Gemmel, Paul | U. of Ghent | Paul.gemmel@vlerick.be | +32 9 2109860 |
| | Desmet, Steven | U. of Ghent | Steven.desmet@rug.ac.be | +32 (9) 210.98.54 |
| | Van Looy, Bart | K.U. Leuven | bart.vanlooy@econ.kuleuven.ac.be | +32 16 326777 |
| | This paper illustrates a methodology which can be used for internal benchmarking of staffing practices in a multi-site service environment.
It is based on a combination of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Activity Based Management (ABM).
The paper will show that a combination of these two methodologies can offer valuable insights.
This approach is extensively illustrated within a major bank which wanted to investigate whether it could improve productivity of the existing staff in its branches
in order to meet changes in customer requirements and this without negative consequences on the quality of the service.
DEA is used to get an insight into the labor effectiveness.
However, one of the major disadvantages of DEA is its lack of discriminative power between high and low performing units.
Therefore, the DEA study was complemented with an ABM analysis into labor productivity, which allowed to better identify best practices.
|
| | Keywords: efficiency measurement; benchmarking; staffing practices |
| Effective Design of Products/Services: An Approach Based on Integration of Marketing and Operations Management Decisions |
| | Verma, Rohit | DePaul U. | rverma@condor.depaul.edu | 312-362-6145 |
| | Thompson, Gary M. | Cornell U. | gmt1@cornell.edu | 607-255-8214 |
| | Moore, William L. | U. of Utah | mktbm@business.utah.edu | 801-581-7676 |
| | Louviere, Jordan J. | U. of Sydney | jordanl@bullwinkle.econ.su.oz.au | |
| | This paper presents an integrated framework for designing profit-maximizing products (and services) which can also
be produced at reasonable operating difficulty level. Operating difficulty is represented as a function of product
and process attributes and measures a firms' relative ease or difficulty in meeting customer demand patterns under
specified operating conditions. Earlier optimum product design procedures have not considered operational difficulty.
We show that optimum profit, market share, cost, and product profiles are dependent on operating difficulty level.
Empirical results from the pizza delivery industry demonstrate the value of the proposed Effective Product/Service
Design approach. |
| | Keywords: Operations/Marketing; Product/Service Design; Choice/Conjoint Analysis |