Research On Lead User Identification And Participation Behavior In NPD Of Mass Customization

In mass manufacture mode what enterprises focuses on is how to propose products in least cost to satisfy common needs. Product R&D, manufacturing and sales are proceed in Stage independent serial mode. Enterprise mainly acquires technical knowledge and demand information from lead users. Lead user hopes enterprises develop products in line with its own unique personalized demand through participation in new product development (NPD). But due to the higher participation cost, the only needs can be realized is product needs, therefore the participation motivations is only product value motivation, that is to lower the cost of access to a larger product yield. Lead users'participation behavior is limited in new product concept developmenting projects and contributing their knowledge of technology and needs.In Mass customization mode, product R&D, manufacturing and product sales are proceed in cooperate parallel mode based on network which shorten the product development cycle and life cycle and competition is based on time. In order to reduce the uncertainty of product development, enterprises need to make NPD preced throughout the product life cycle and make use of lead users'market leading position to guide common users'consumption behavior. Therefore lead users are needed to participate in the whole process of NPD, especially the new product promotion stage.Mass customization mode is usually based on the network which changes lead users'motivation of involvement in NPD needs. The character of instance and interactive causes lead users to be leaders in netnews and they can easily obtain a greater sense of success and satisfaction from NPD behavior. High level needs of self-esteem and self realization can be generated so that the participation motivation and behavior also changes. It is necessary to research lead users'behavior of involvement in NPD in mass customization.Lead users'participation behavior includes early adoption behavior and the technology diffusion behavior to the common users. Lead users often become early adopters. Network can release their influence in the market. The sooner they adopt new products, the more influence on common users, and the more conducive to the promotion of new product performance. It is necessary to study the lead users's early adoption behavior and its influenc factors. In Mass customization mode, product design for a particular user is accomplished in the process customization in sales stage. Thus it is remarkable of lead users to diffuse their knolwdge to common users for promoting the whole technology diffusion. Therefore it is necessary to study the lead users'technology diffusion behavior to the common users.In addition, lead users'identification is the basis of research on lead users'participation bahavior. In Mass production mode, only a few lead users are required to participate in NPD and pyramiding method is efficient. However in Mass customization mode, lead users participate in the whole process of NPD. It needs to identify as many as possible lead users to maximize the lead users'role. Network makes it possible to efficiently identify all the lead users in a target group. It is necessary to develop a new identification method based on netnews.This paper mainly analyzes the following aspects:Firstly, it develops a new identification method based on netnews in mass customizaiton. After reviewing the main factors of lead users'identification it establishes three indicators of identifying lead user: market or technological trends, user returns and information complexities based on which it promotes the questionair method. Based on questionnaire and pyramiding, a method of SPQIM is developed. Comparative analysis of the three methods shows that the former two methods are both efficient and the cost of SPQIM is the lowest.Secondly, motivations of lead users'participation in NPD are analyzed based on the network in mass customizaiton. It finds with Gaming Theory that lead user's behavior is related to the people who have the same needs. It proposed nine motivation hypothesis of lead user's participating in new product development on the basis of literature researches. Then a scale is developed to conduct a questionnaire survey on the lead user of a mobile phone manufacturer in NPD Netnews and use factor analysis to process the questionnaire. It suggests that the greatest impacts are the unique product needs motivation and cognitive motivation, the interest motivation and the production control motivation. The communication motivation and network immersion motivation are not confirmed.Thirdly, it analyzes lead users'early adoption behavior and technology diffusion behavior in mass customization. It analyzes the factors which influence the status of lead user (SLU) and the relationship between SLU and early adopted behavior. It confirms the positive relationship between SLU and early adopted behavior. Lead user would like to adopt new products earlier than common users and the higher of SLU, the amount of they adopt new products will be more and the time will be earlier. Furthurmore it is found that the most important factor which influences SLU is lead user's innovativeness. The other two factors are also confirmed.It also analyzes the technology diffusion behavior of lead users to common users. It analyzes the characters of lead user and technique diffusion process from lead users to common users and gives a definition of index of Lead user's technology diffusion forces. An L-C-O model is developed on the basis of infectious model. It finds out that the model can decscrib the technique dissuion process and the products'performance will be decided by the very beginning quantity of common users and the population of common users that lead user can influence. Also the model can be used to divide the Product Life Cycle (PLC). It is found those three indices and the changing rules of the percentage of lead users, the velocity of lead users transforming and user transforming rate can be used to divide the PLC.