Vol. 5 Num. 3 - GCG: Revista de GlobalizaciÃ³n, Competitividad y ...

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Product innovation: An empirical study into the impact of simultaneous engineering on new product quality94 and early involvement. To carry out this study, a questionnaire was designed and sent to126 Spanish companies with innovative products, manufacturing electronic materials, radio,television and communications equipment (Spanish National Classification of EconomicActivities: CNAE-32). A linear regression analysis was run on the 43 valid questionnairesreturned which allowed us to evaluate the hypothesis, with the degree of improvement asthe control variable.The results of the regressions appear to indicate that, on the one hand, early involvement isthe basic principle of simultaneous engineering which has no effect on new product quality,and on the other hand that the use of multifunctional teams has the greatest effect on thisvariable representing the success of a new product.Such teams consist of people from different functional areas, including customers andsuppliers, who cooperate in executing the tasks of the team. They have the support of toplevel management, a leader who is fully dedicated to the project from start to finish, andwill stimulate communications and informal relations. This helps to reach agreement whentaking decisions regarding the project, which in turn allows an earlier identification of problemsand their solutions, given that all technical, commercial, manufacturing aspects, etc.,are considered from the beginning of the project. Furthermore, taking the customers intoaccount when shaping the development team helps the product not only to meet but alsoexceed their expectations, thus ensuring a high level of quality for the product.Simultaneous engineering brings together all members of a project through a system ofinformation and knowledge interchange, and establishes simple and effective mechanismsto coordinate activities. The early identification of problems and solutions make engineeringchanges necessary which will affect both previous and later stages. Nevertheless, suchengineering changes to incorporate technical or market information will help to create productsthat will satisfy the needs of consumers and even exceed their expectations. Thisraises the quality of the new product independently of the degree of innovation, since wehave not found empirical evidence of differences in quality between radical and incrementalproduct innovation.Given the available data, early involvement does not appear to be a factor that significantlyaffects the increase in new product quality, although this result may be due to the high correlationbetween this factor and the other basic principles of simultaneous engineering. Indeed,as mentioned in the theoretical background, these results support those researcherswho propose only two basic principles for simultaneous engineering, since early involvementis an aspect which can be analyzed either under multifunctional teams or concurrentworkflow.Although much attention has been focused in this paper on theoretical and empirical aspects,the design of the study and the analysis of the hypothesis, there are a number oflimitations which necessitate careful evaluation of the results obtained.Firstly, the model contains subjective variables, and for this reason a questionnaire wasused, despite the problem of low rates of return which is reflected in this study. Furthermore,since the information about the basic principles of simultaneous engineering as well as theGCG GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - UNIVERSIA SEPTIEMBRE-DICIEMBRE 2011 VOL. 5 NUM. 3 ISSN: 1988-7116pp: 80-101
Beatriz Minguela-Ratadependent variable is supplied by the same person, it is possible that the study suffers fromcommon variance bias.95Secondly, the indicators used to construct the different research variables have producedsatisfactory but in our opinion not particularly high values in reliability tests. Improving theseindicators in the future could perhaps provide, if not better results, at least an indication ofthe influence of early involvement on increases in new product quality.A third limitation is connected with the target population of CNAE-32 sector companiesmanufacturing innovative products in Spain. It appears from the descriptive analysis of thequestionnaire responses that these companies are still some way behind what is advocatedin the literature on simultaneous engineering. This may be due to the fact that, irrespective ofsector, some companies are averse to the implementation of such integrative methods becauseof the important changes involved in structure and organization and the way in whichtheir processes are carried out. This factor and the first limitation pointed out above implythat care should be taken not to extrapolate the results obtained here to other sectors, tocompanies with innovative processes or to those which implement innovation outside Spain.In future research, apart from the improvements mentioned such as refining the indicators,we are planning to use case studies in order to collect greater amounts of data and carry outnew explanatory studies.GCG GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - UNIVERSIA SEPTIEMBRE-DICIEMBRE 2011 VOL. 5 NUM. 3 ISSN: 1988-7116pp: 80-101
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Revista cuatrimestral Four-monthly
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SUMARIO SUMMARY SUMÁRIO12345678Fin
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StaffDe la Torre, José, Dean, Chap
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Staff2. MULTINACIONALES, INVERSIÓN
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SELECCIÓN PROCEDURE PROCEDIMENTOIN
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Instrucciones para Autores y Proced
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Instrucciones para Autores y Proced
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16Financial Integration in the Amer
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Financial Integration in the Americ
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30Factores determinantes de lademan
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Page 80 and 81: 80authorBeatrizMinguela-Rata 1GIPTI
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Page 102 and 103: 102autoresDaniel Hernández-Soto 1P
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