The Role of the Interaction between the User and the Manufacturer in Medical Equipment Innovation

Abstract

It has been empirically observed that 'understanding user need' and 'good internal and external communications' are factors which discriminate strongly between commercially successful industrial product and process innovations and those that fail. The research reported in this paper examines how the innovating firm achieves desirable levels of these factors through multiple and continuous interaction with the user throughout the innovation process.In the sample of thirty-four medical equipment innovations from eleven companies, twenty six (76 per cent) were developed through multiple and continuous interaction, resulting in twenty two (65 per cent) of these being successful.There appear to be two major reasons for this high level of interaction: (1) the requirement that any equipment that is to be potentially introduced into clinical use first needs clinical assessment and trial; and (2) the 'state of the art' clinical and diagnostic knowledge resides in the user. A special relationship is, therefore, needed between the clinical advisory and trial team on the one hand and the manufacturer on the other.The introduction t o this paper reviews the findings of other work in the examination of the role of the user in the innovation process. Details of the sample, the methods of sample selection and classification of the data follow in section 2. The results of the research are summarised in section 3. These detail the nature of the medical equipment innovation process, identifying in particular the high level of interaction between the user, intermediaries and the manufacturer, resulting in good communications and understanding of user need. Section 4 attempts to determine the significance of these results for the effective management of innovation and suggest areas for further research.

Does sticky information affect the locus of innovation? Evidence from the Japanese convenience-store industry

“…In addition to the information that they can provide on the relationship between sticky information and the functional locus of innovation, such studies can contribute to our understanding of the patterns of cooperation among users and producers during the development process studied by authors such as Rothwell and Gardiner (1985) and Shaw (1985). These authors have pointed out that, especially in the instance of complex and specialized equipment (such as the SEJ inventory management systems we have studied), there is a need for direct cooperation between user and producer during the process of innovation.…”

“…Leonard-Barton, 1995; Lee, 1996; Shaw, 1985Shaw, , 1986. They take the view that the user generates the idea for a new product and initiates various stages of the development of the product (Lee, 1996).…”

A SAT View on New Service Development

“…However, a problem could occur when the service system developers do not know who the putative users are (Wyatt 2000). Moreover, a lead user's role tends to be highly dependent on their competencies (Voss 1984, Shaw 1985, Foxall, 1988, such that the lead users may be found outside of existing customers. In addition, the lead users may only have an interest in improving or changing specific elements or attributes of the new service.…”

La evolución tecnológica del disco artificial según la Teoría del ciclo de vida del producto

“…Esto coloca a los usuarios en una posición de privilegio en estos sectores, en los que este conocimiento relacionado con el uso es imprescindible para la innovación. En este contexto, en ocasiones son los propios usuarios los protagonistas de todo el proceso de innovación, desde la concepción original del principio de funcionamiento hasta la comercialización final del producto (Von Hippel, 1988;Shaw, 1985). En las tecnologías médicas, además, los usuarios avanzados y las instituciones profesionales tienen además un papel preponderante en la difusión de las nuevos productos, puesto que el prestigio profesional es un factor determinante de esta difusión (Coleman et al, 1966;Metcalfe et al, 2005).…”

“…En el ámbito de las tecnologías médicas la interacción entre los usuarios-inventores y las empresas ha sido estudiada en diversas ocasiones (Shaw, 1985;Lettl et al, 2006). Sin embargo, no existe ningún trabajo que estudie la evolución de esta interacción a lo largo de un periodo de tiempo tan extenso como el nuestro.…”