MODULAR DESIGN AS A KEY CAPABILITY FOR CREATING FUTURE PRODUCTS UNDER UNCERTAINTY


Asan U., Polat S., Serdar Asan Ş.

FOCUSED ISSUE ON THE MARKETING PROCESS IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCE, cilt.1, ss.237-270, 2005 (Hakemli Dergi) identifier

Özet

Organizational environments are far from a steady equilibrium. Since competence-based theory aims to prepare organizations for the future and to contribute to long-term corporate prosperity, it is vital to develop ways to imagine possible futures and ways to respond to them. This chapter discusses a scenario-based approach to anticipating and responding to uncertain futures by developing modular products that increase a firm's chances of succeeding in multiple alternative futures. After introducing the theoretical basis of this study, a structured approach to operationalizing the generation of future scenarios and the development of modular product designs is developed. The approach consists of four stages: (1) generation of scenarios about future market needs, (2) translation of those needs into goals for modular designs, (3) the modular design process itself and (4) evaluation of the modular design process. The modular design process we discuss is a function-based design approach that is independent form and thus allows joint consideration of future market needs and product functions that can serve those needs. We illustrate our proposed approach by applying it to generate scenarios and modular design criteria for the closed circuit television (CCTV) market in the security equipment sector in Turkey.