Abstract
Increasingly connected, empowered and informed consumers have ever higher demands and expectations of product and service provision. Organisations which are not sufficiently agile and responsive to meet such expectations will face failure. Collaborative Envisioning - a methodology for enabling collaboration across supply chains using design tools to meet consumer demands in the new economy - has been developed by the authors in a demonstration project titled Beyond the Fridge which was described and discussed in a paper given at the 10th International Forum on Design Management Research & Education and analysed with recommendations in a paper given at the 4th European Academy of Design Conference. Beyond the Fridge considered large corporations with effective control over their own supply chains. The barriers to SMEs developing new business models in response to new customer, user and consumer requirements are quite different from those faced by large corporations and tend to centre around the fragility of the company’s position in the supply chain and its defence of this position. This paper reports on the development of the Collaborative Envisioning methodology to engage with SMEs, the utilisation of design skills within this process and the role of universities and design academics as partners with SMEs.
Citation
Wilkinson, M., and Sale, R. (2002) Designing supply chain innovation, in Durling, D. and Shackleton, J. (eds.), Common Ground - DRS International Conference 2002, 5-7 September, London, United Kingdom. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2002/researchpapers/88
Designing supply chain innovation
Increasingly connected, empowered and informed consumers have ever higher demands and expectations of product and service provision. Organisations which are not sufficiently agile and responsive to meet such expectations will face failure. Collaborative Envisioning - a methodology for enabling collaboration across supply chains using design tools to meet consumer demands in the new economy - has been developed by the authors in a demonstration project titled Beyond the Fridge which was described and discussed in a paper given at the 10th International Forum on Design Management Research & Education and analysed with recommendations in a paper given at the 4th European Academy of Design Conference. Beyond the Fridge considered large corporations with effective control over their own supply chains. The barriers to SMEs developing new business models in response to new customer, user and consumer requirements are quite different from those faced by large corporations and tend to centre around the fragility of the company’s position in the supply chain and its defence of this position. This paper reports on the development of the Collaborative Envisioning methodology to engage with SMEs, the utilisation of design skills within this process and the role of universities and design academics as partners with SMEs.