Project Details
Description
Abstract for NSF Grant 0322739 Koen
Creating New Wealth by Improving the Fuzzy Front End of the Innovation Engine
The objective of this proposal is to discover, significantly improve and disseminate effective practices for the Fuzzy Front End (FFE) so as to increase the number of commercially successful major products that may be fed into the New Product Development (NPD) portion of the innovation engine in the Chemical, Food and Beverage, Medical Device and Petroleum segments. The value of this proposal is related to advancing knowledge in the FFE - which represents an under researched area. The broader impact is the enablement of new scientific and technological discoveries to be more quickly turned into products.
The innovation process can be divided into three parts: 1. the FFE where product concepts are created 2. the NPD portion where the product is developed and 3. commercialization where the product is sold. Practices for the NPD portion have been extensively investigated. However, most companies have found that the, now efficient, NPD portion is being mostly fed with low profit and low risk incremental projects. A better understanding of the FFE will allow more high risk platform and radical projects to be introduced into the NPD.
This goal will be achieved in seven sequential steps: 1. perform case studies in the targeted segments; 2. develop a validated survey with outcome measures with partner companies (i.e. Industrial Research Institute, Cabot Corporation, Ethicon, ExxonMobil, LORD Corporation and Rich Products); 3. survey the targeted segments; 4. determine the most effective practices by visiting companies in the top 20% and compare them to a matched pair in the 50% octal; 5. develop an assessment tool which companies can use to compare their practices against the top 20%; 6. apply the methodologies in an actual intervention using the assessment tool; and 7. develop traditional and web enabled course material to disseminate the knowledge.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 15/08/03 → 31/07/06 |
Funding
- National Science Foundation