The Front End of Innovation
Building on the discussion of the integrated innovation and product management process, this chapter will start out with an explanation of the Front End of Innovation (FEI) with its high degree of uncertainty that differentiates the early stages from the
- PDF / 1,007,391 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 9 Downloads / 178 Views
The Front End of Innovation
3.1
Introduction
According to Murphy and Kumar [1], the Front End of Innovation (FEI) is the time between identifying an opportunity in a market place and the start of the NPD execution. Koen et al. [2] describe the early stages of the innovation process as the activities that take place prior to the formal, well-structured NPD process. Supplementing this, Herstatt and Verworn [3] emphasizes the go/no-go decision for implementing a concept as the end point of the early phase. The early stages of the innovation process between first consideration of an opportunity and the point when it is judged ready to enter the structured development process are defined as the Fuzzy Front End [2]. Here the company develops the first concept of the product to be developed and decides whether or not to invest resources in the further advancement of an idea. The Fuzzy Front End disappears when a company approves and starts formal development of the product concept [4]. This Chapter Will Discuss
• What are the characteristics of the Front End of Innovation? • Which factors influence the success at the FEI? • Which models can be applied to structure the FEI?
Practical Insight
Coloplast: Organizing the Front End of Innovation Coloplast was founded in 1954 when nurse Elise Sorensen developed the first self-adhering ostomy bag as a way of helping her sister, a stomach cancer patient. She took her idea to a various plastics manufacturers, but none showed interest at first. Eventually one, Aage Louis-Hansen discussed the concept with his wife, a nurse, who saw the potential of such a device and (continued) K. Gaubinger et al., Innovation and Product Management, Springer Texts in Business and Economics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-54376-0_3, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
43
44
3
The Front End of Innovation
persuaded her husband to give the ostomy bag a chance. Hansen’s company, Dansk Plastic Emballage, produced the world’s first disposable ostomy bag in 1955. Two years later Dansk Coloplast was founded and the success story began. Today, Coloplast develops products and services that make life easier for people with very personal and private medical conditions. Their business includes Continence Care, Ostomy Care, Wound and Skin Care, and Surgical Urology and the company has subsidiaries in 20 and factories in 5 countries around the world Working closely with the people who use Coloplast’s products is one of their secrets of success. Through panels of users, specialist nurses and other health professionals they manage to gain deep insights into how their products are used and which features users would find valuable. By this Coloplast can quickly bring pioneering products to their consumers based on the responses and needs from them. This is done by combining their portfolio of competences, materials and design along with input from many parts of the organization. The involvement of professionals and end-users in various boards and panels is an integrated part of Coloplast’s innovation process whi
Data Loading...
