An Empirical Study On Internet-based New Product Development Process And Its Integration With Knowledge

With the development of Internet and the advancement of information technology, enterprises have more options on where to get information and how to get. Internet brought improvement on technical support within enterprises and reduction on information cost. While if massive information and knowledge is not effectively combined with business processes, enterprises may not take these advantages, inversely may bring problems like difficulties on decision making which will negatively affect the business. Therefore, how new product development process and knowledge are integrated systematically to take the best advantage of knowledge and improve the efficiency of new product development process, becomes more and more important among studies on the future product development model in the era of knowledge.The paper analyzed characters of Internet-based new product development process and knowledge demand, and then raised a system framework for the integration of Internet-based new product development process and knowledge. The paper also studied a process-based model for suppliers and customers participation to new product development with analysis through strategy planning, concept validation, develop and analysis, test and manufacturing, commercialization phases and then argued the corresponding influence. Besides a set of team-learning based organizational structure and process was raised with analysis on the influence on the organizational structure and process by team learning.At last, an empirical study was conducted to prove the mentioned process and team-learning model. The paper took GE new product development process as a case, detailed analyzed the characters of every phase in the process and their integration with knowledge, followed by comprehensive comparison among the knowledge management application of GE, HP, Siemens MED. In the end, a survey was conducted to validate the integration model of Internet-based new product development model knowledge.The author participates in the National Natural Science Foundation of China funding project- Study of the New Product Development and Knowledge Management Theory and Method in the Network Environment (70571052), and this paper is a stage research achievement of this project.