文档介绍:IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 53, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2006 543
The Application of New Product Development Tools
in Industry: The Case of Singapore
Kah-Hin Chai, Member, IEEE, and Yan Xin, Student Member, IEEE
Abstract—Literature suggests that new product development to a firm’s decision either to use a tool in the NPD process
(NPD) is critical for industrial firms to gain petitive ad- or to reject the use of such an instrument. Diffusion refers to
vantage. Intriguingly, the systematic application of NPD tools in the cumulative number of firms that has adopted NPD tools
industry, despite the extensive effort that has been invested and
the benefits that can be obtained, remains mostly mon. or techniques over time, including both within pany
By conducting ten semi-structured interviews with selected aca- and across panies. It is indicated that there is a
demics and industrialists and using a sample of 67 industrial positive relationship between the application of NPD tools and
firms in Singapore for questionnaire survey, this empirical study panies’ performance [10], [11].
investigates the diffusion and adoption of NPD tools in industry. Intriguingly, the systematic application of NPD tools in in-
It also probes the factors which may affect the application of NPD
tools. Our findings reveal that the application of NPD tools is still dustry, despite the extensive effort that has been invested and
under-exploited in most of the panies in Singapore. the long-term benefits that may be achieved, remains mostly
Although the application of NPD tools is affected by many factors, mon [9], [12]. Some possible reasons which may ac-
the most significant are management support in pany and count for the low usage of NPD tools have been revealed in pre-
the innovativeness orientation of pany. Surprisingly, we vious studies. However, most of the studies have focused on fac-
found that the usefulness of tools has little influence on whether a
tool is adopt