Evaluating cross-border product development practices
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Quality and operations management (MPQOM), MSc
Publicerad
2020
Författare
Sjövall, Robert
Liljenberg, Adam
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
This thesis aimed to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, improvement-areas, and root-causes of the case company´s produt development practices. The case company had one product design office each in two European countries, and oneshared location for manufacturing and materials sourcing in a third European country.
The thesis consists of a failure analysis case study of four problematic product
development projects. The scope included analyzing the projects from three major
perspectives: the influence of operations strategy, of organizational structure, and of
early actions in the projects. The scope also included an analysis of a minor
perspective: the communication of project information.
The study focused on experiences and information about the projects gathered from
employees that were directly involved. Four interviews with representatives from
upstream and downstream departments were conducted for each project. Conclusions
were then drawn based on similarities and differences between the interviews and
previous research into the main literature areas mentioned above.
The study found that the nature of the problems in the individual projects varied
greatly, as expected, and that there were indications of similarities and differences
based on in which country the development projects originated in. However, no
evidence supports the notion that any cultural differences were a root-cause.
The researchers were able to conclude that the resource deployment had missed the
target in the problematic projects, and that the formulation and communication of an
operations strategy should assist the case company to avoid similar problems in the
future. The study also concludes that the co-writing of project specifications should
mitigate experienced uncertainties, and further recommends designing a new product
development process to improve the execution of complex projects.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
operations strategy, , resource deployment , project organization , product development , project management