Design-Driven Innovation

The market and technology are constantly changing, requiring that suppliers are adaptable, use new development methods, alternative approaches and think beyond their own organization by creating new ways of develop products.

Design-Driven Innovation examines the use of tangible tools and design methods in the relations between technical suppliers and their customers in the new product development.

Research question

How can technical companies make innovative and sustainable products in the development phase based on the theory of design-driven innovation, inter-organisational relationship and co-design?

The success of this research would be to have more technical companies implement design methods and tangible tools in their development phase

The objective of this paper is to explore, discuss and evaluate how and when suppliers can strengthen their relationship to their costumers by using co-design as an active tool in the process of developing innovative products? The focus will be on technical suppliers’ utilization of different design methods and tangible tools during the early idea generation and concept development phase of the NPD project.

This research will build on the literature on the inter-organisational relationship in terms of virtual organization and co-design through co-creation in new product development (NPD) projects.

Research has shown that co-design combined with relationship management foster competitive advantages for suppliers which is necessary for the productivity of the supplier.

Co-design requires close collaboration between customer and supplier e.g. every transaction implies information and coordination about customer specific needs and is based on a direct communication between the customer and supplier. During this process design methods and co-designing with tangible tools have been studied.

Suppliers can by the utilization of new development methods, alternative approaches and think beyond their own organization and create new ways of develop products or services together with their customers in a portfolio relationship.

A design management approach will be used through this research by letting practice and theory merge together. We will focus on the understanding of how actions can create reflection and motivation for new experiments and learning. During the research different design methods will be utilized to explore the possibilities of relationship formation by expending tangible tools and design methods.

We intend to investigate further how strategic design and co-design can be integrated in firms if a design thinker is attached, or someone in the company is educated to do so. We expect to find that this can motivate the entire firm to get articulated and consciously of using the design methods and tangible tools which will add value to the company and financial returns.

An optimum situation is an incremental process of change as Market-Pull Innovation where the organization gradually becomes customer developers based on a Generative Design Research where the stakeholders need to change their mind-set and gets ownership of the approach.

• Pre interview with HN Group. March + April 2016
• Interview suppliers HN Group + Styropack. August 2016
• CINet Conference. September 2016
• Futher research. 2017
• CINet Conference. September 2017
• Final research and reporting. 2018

The unit of analysis in this study is a specific case of a technical company, that works with closed participation within a flat governance described as Consortium collaboration.

Our research idea is build on an explorative case study of a technical company Styropack A/S, a supplier of EPP and EPS, which is a plastic mixture that primarily contains air (flamingo) in a B2B relation. Interviews with experts representing both Analytical Thinking (LM Wind Power A/S), Intuitive Thinking (Design School in Kolding) and Design Thinking (Danfoss A/S) did confirm the theory of the The Predilection Gab.

Furthermore, we made interviews with the case company, where tangible tools were included, was set up to get an understanding of the company’s use and acceptance of Design Thinking in a management discourse. Together with anthropological observations of NPD projects, and interviews with Styropack A/S largest customer Vestfrost Solutions A/S which primary progression is refrigerators and freezers. The conclusion from the research shows that the relations between the supplier and customer as well as the complexity of the NPD project are crucial for the use of tangible tools and design methods.

For further research we will identify several suppliers from the same industry in order to be able to conduct a comparable multiple case study.

• Students (technical) will be more open minded to the innovation process due to the research findings
• Teachers/Consultants will know which design methods and tangible tools they need to use in the specific situation
• Suppliers and customers will become more innovative, have a better relationship and structure a more secured environment by using the right design methods and tangible tools