A methodology to facilitate knowledge sharing in the new product development process

Abstract

This paper describes the findings of an exploratory case study to investigate knowledge sharing problems in the new product development (NPD) process of a multi-national manufacturing company, and classifies the problems into three categories, i.e. (a) the lack of an explicit definition and prioritization of information about the knowledge used in the NPD process, (b) the challenges raised by, and lack of tools to support, knowledge sharing in a multilingual, multidisciplinary environment, and (c) the dissemination of information about the task and process knowledge to process users. An ontology-based methodology has been proposed, and a pilot study has been carried out to solve these problems. The pilot study includes the selection of suitable candidate tasks (or sub-processes) for the study, the elicitation of information about the selected task knowledge, the development of task knowledge ontology, and a mechanism to visualize and disseminate the ontology to process users. Early implementation and tests have shown that the proposed methodology may be used to facilitate knowledge sharing in the new product development process. The project was sponsored by a leading heating system manufacturer and further tests will be carried out with real industrial problems.

How preference markets assist new product idea screening

“…This suggests that innovation contests, while respecting the principle of segregation between invention and evaluation activities (Demerest 1997), close the gap between them, and help to address the critical issue of prioritization of information in the NPD process (Bradfield & Gao 2007). Our study contributes to an emerging field of research on preference market-based innovation contests (e.g.…”

“…The literature on knowledge management in NPD predominantly has focused on the study of methodologies for information retrieval and circulation in the late stages of the process (e.g. Bradfield & Gao 2007;Xu 2014), or the design of multi-criteria group decision support systems (e.g. Chiu et al 2006).…”

Using micro-blogging to dismantle knowledge hierarchies in product development teams

“…It is recognised [21] that the activities associated to the capture, management and sharing of employee knowledge face numerous barriers typically relating to either social factors or the technology adopted or a combination of both [22]. Disterer [23] and Riege [24] both recognised that organisations themselves can contribute to a failure to collect knowledge, stating that the hierarchical structure of a company may be counter-productive to knowledge capturing initiatives.…”

An overview of knowledge sharing in new product development

“…Bradfield and Gao [32] presented an exploratory case study conducted at a multinational physical goods manufacturer. This investigation uncovered main barriers to knowledge sharing such as the lack of an explicit definition of the knowledge used and generated in the product development process, and the absence of mechanisms to make this information accessible in a multilingual environment and to disseminate it to NPD project team members.…”