Integration Across Knowledge Boundaries During New Product Introduction

Abstract

New product introduction refers to all activities that are required to make a product possible to produce in planned volumes. To ensure smooth new product introduction, product and production developers work in a cross-functional and integrated way. Because of high degree of novelty during new product introduction and interdependencies between those involved knowledge boundaries are created. As prior research argues, different types of knowledge boundaries require different integration processes. For example, integration at a syntactic boundary is established by transfer of domain-specific knowledge across a boundary, while coping with semantic boundary requires a process of translation where learning about the differences and dependencies at the boundary is required. To be able to understand how to integrate product and production development across knowledge boundaries and hence support new product introduction it is important to understand what types of boundaries need to be crossed. To overcome the shortcomings of the prior research, this paper focuses on knowledge boundaries and prerequisites for successful integration in new product introduction. It is based on success stories from three large Swedish companies. This paper addresses transdisciplinary challenges and contributes to literature on boundary crossing during new product introduction and to practice.

Engineering Tools as Boundary Objects Between Product Development and Production

“…Boundary objects also have the capacity to reconcile different meanings to cross a semantic boundary. In that case, the boundary object needs to provide concrete means for the individuals to translate and learn about their differences and dependencies across the specialized domains [2] [9]. Examples of boundary objects that can effectively deal with such a boundary are standardized forms and methods such as engineering change formats like design failure mode and effect analysis (D-FMEA), process failure mode and effect analysis (P-FMEA).…”

“…Boundary objects have previously been applied in areas such as educational research [5], software development [6], agile systems engineering [7], and healthcare [8] and are gaining interest in engineering [9]. Boundary objects are contextual and dependent on the situation and what they need to convey, such as time perspectives or representations of data [4].…”

Customizing Management Strategies for Product Introduction in Low-Volume Manufacturing: Enhancing Information Content Quality

“…In this context, managing information of the right quality during the product introduction process becomes crucial [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Notably, researchers recognize that the content quality of developed and shared information during product introduction (i.e., the soundness and relevance of the information to its purpose [4,18,19], plays a pivotal role in the management and success of product introduction [15,20,21]), thereby supporting sustainable production practices.…”

“…Product introduction involves the iterative mutual adjustment of both the product and the production system during the design phase, facilitating the transformation of a product design into volume production [12]. Although product introduction definitions may vary in terms of scope and activities [13,14], it is widely acknowledged as the interface between product design and production design, fostering collaboration and information sharing [15][16][17][18].…”