Track 11: The Sustainability of New Product Development Projects
Chaired by Antonio Calabrese, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, Paul Gardiner, Heriot-Watt University, UK, and Anders Söderholm (anders.soderholm@usbe.umu.se), Umeå School of Business, Umeå university, Sweden.
New Product Development (NPD) is a highly important activity for the long term survival of companies. The importance of the NPD process is further emphasized by issues such as (1) shortened product life cycles, requiring more frequent product development projects, product updates and re-launches, (2) globalization, requiring NPD projects across regional and cultural borders for the benefit of global consumer needs, and (3) increasingly costly and risky endeavours, requiring more carefully designed processes to ensure development efficiency.
At the same time, decisions made during the NPD process have a major impact upon how sustainable products are produced, for example the manufacturing methods and materials used, whether they can be recycled and the environmental impact resorting from the utilization of the product. Sustainability considerations implemented during the NPD process are thus fundamental aspects of importance for sustainability in business generally. Designing for "cradle to cradle", instead of "cradle to grave", and design to "reduce - reuse - recycle" are some of the expressions highlighting sustainability challenges facing NPD.
Parallel to sustainability issues, however, NPD also involves a number of financial, logistic, consumer and market decisions, and it has to contain a certain level of innovativeness. Combining all of this into coherent and effective decisions and NPD organizing practices is a complex management task. Sustainable NPD is thus a design issue but also a management and organizational issue. There are also cost/income concerns to be made at each stage of the NPD process where the cost and income generated from a sustainability focus needs to be assessed. From an even broader approach, sustainability also has to do with the well being of the organization and issues such as workplace security and satisfaction may thus be inherent parts of a sustainability approach to NPD. For this track, we are inviting contributions that draw attention to New Product Development and Sustainability issues from a broad perspective. Preferably, papers should be based on empirical studies, provide theoretical or conceptual analysis of the chosen subject. Contributions are welcome on, although not limited to, the following issues:
• Organizing challenges for introducing sustainable concerns within NPD projects
• Innovative and technology management issues in the light of sustainability and NPD
• The early stages of product design and sustainability
• The NPD - manufacturing interface and sustainability
• Assessment of the NPD costs for eco-efficiency and sustainability
• Management practices in the field of the sustainability of NPD projects
• Impact of transnational regulations, industry and technology standards, or corporate policies on sustainability for NPD processes
• Eco-design and NPD management
• Commercializing sustainability - when sustainability is made the core idea of NPD
• Globalizing sustainability - organizing cross national NPD projects
• Critical assessments of sustainable NPD processes
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