Life Cycle Assessment of Process Eco-Innovations in an SME Automotive Supply Network

Raggi, Andrea; Pietro, Rosica

doi:10.3390/su71013761

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Therein, collaboration with external actors, such as universities, suppliers customers or even competitors, becomes more common in order to overcome these barriers [33]. These collaborative, open-innovation settings receive attention in eco-innovation research [34,35]. A new area of research in this domain is that the open-innovation processes for eco-innovation shall not exclusively be focused on the development phase of the technology, but also account for value creation and capture aspects of the business model to commercialize eco-innovation [36].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Innovation Drivers in Value-Creating Networks: A Case Study of Ship Retrofitting Services

Hermann

Wigger

2017

Sustainability

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Previous studies discuss how regulatory, technological and market drivers increasingly challenge manufacturing industries to adopt eco-innovations. However, the understanding of the process by which eco-innovations are developed and commercialized as a result of these drivers is not yet well established, in particular because these drivers are perceived differently by the end-users and their suppliers. In this paper, we address the following research question: How do eco-innovation drivers shape processes in value-creating networks? To answer this question, we carried out a case study purposely selected to understand how eco-innovation drivers, such as regulation, market pull and technology, interact and affect the eco-innovation decisions in a given industry. We analyzed the processes in an eco-innovation initiative about retrofitting old ships, contextualized in the maritime equipment and supply industry. The paper makes two novel contributions: First, we develop a framework that can support supply-network eco-innovation initiatives to deal with changes at the regulatory, market and technology levels. The framework includes elements, such as value co-creation to explore technological opportunities emerging from the interaction of the drivers or value proposition development to align multiple actors' interests in the network and agree on shared expectations to exploit the opportunities. Second, we contribute to the emerging research area on eco-innovation processes by highlighting the lesser-known role of value-creating network dynamics. Value-creating networks can be a platform for the development of more radical eco-innovations if actors in the networks can align their value creation and capture objectives.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Innovation Drivers in Value-Creating Networks: A Case Study of Ship Retrofitting Services

Hermann

Wigger

2017

Sustainability

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“…Despite many claims and many attempts to customize these approaches to small and mediums size companies like [1,2,3,10,12,15,19], these approaches are still perceived by SMEs as complicated approaches intended for large companies and may scare the management away due to uncertainty during the implementation of changes. Moreover, all these approaches tend to be focused on the process items themselves and not on identifying the root causes of the problems, while identifying such root causes could be the easiest way to find a path for improvement.…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 97%

Assessing the process of an Eastern European software SME using systemic analysis, GQM, and reliability growth models

Ivanov

Mazzara

Pedrycz

et al. 2016

Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion

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This paper reports on the experience of the authors in quantitatively assessing the development process of an Eastern European software SME (Small or Medium Size Enterprise). The company produces a very successful workflow and documentation tool, features about 30 full time developers and has a customer base of about 40 major organizations. It has hired the authors as consultants to address quality and productivity issues raised by the upper management and customers. The adopted approach is based on systemic analysis, and starts with a comprehensive GQM session with the top managers of the company, to fully define the scope of work, and progresses analysing the documentation, interviewing the manager and the lead developers, and quantitatively analysing the issue tracking system in place. Specific attention is placed in identifying "schismogenesis", situations that may lead to unresolvable conflicts. The approach has been proven successful in providing a result in short forecasted timeframe, and systemic analysis has been effective in spotting the most critical situations present in the company. The result has been a set of prioritized recommendations, centered first in eliminating the schismogenetic situations and then ranging from adopting a more quantitative process control, to streamline the activities, to organize a line of product.

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“…The majority of the identified eco-innovation tools focus at the product level. Some examples of eco-innovation tools at the product level includes: creativity and ideation [37][38][39][40][41][42], Life Cycle Assessment and environmental evaluation [43,44], ecodesign [45][46][47][48], material selection [49] and biomimetic design [50]). In total, 13 tools linked with the company level were identified.…”

Section: Tools For Measuring the Eco-innovation Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Readiness of SMEs for Eco-Innovation and Industrial Symbiosis: Development of a Screening Tool

2018

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Despite the high business, innovation and sustainability potential linked with eco-innovation and industrial symbiosis, limited implementation can be observed in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In order to enhance the implementation of these concepts in SMEs, the main goal of this paper is to propose a screening tool to identify and evaluate SMEs’ potential for eco-innovation, with a special focus on industrial symbiosis and green business models aspects. In order to accomplish this goal, an action research was developed in two cycles: (1) development and testing of the screening prototype; and (2) improvement and scale-up of the enhanced screening tool, in close collaboration with the research partners. In addition to enabling a better understanding about their own internal processes and activities, the evaluation of the potential of 108 SMEs for eco-innovation provided them with detailed insights about how to reach the potential benefits with industrial symbiosis and green business models. Differently from the identified existing tools, the screening tool proposed in this research aims at supporting companies to understand what their potential for eco-innovation is, combining wider eco-innovation and industrial symbiosis opportunities and green business models, supplemented with a readiness evaluation to explore the existing potential.

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Life Cycle Assessment of Process Eco-Innovations in an SME Automotive Supply Network

Cited by 15 publications

References 21 publications

Eco-Innovation Drivers in Value-Creating Networks: A Case Study of Ship Retrofitting Services

Eco-Innovation Drivers in Value-Creating Networks: A Case Study of Ship Retrofitting Services

Assessing the process of an Eastern European software SME using systemic analysis, GQM, and reliability growth models

Measuring the Readiness of SMEs for Eco-Innovation and Industrial Symbiosis: Development of a Screening Tool

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