Abstract
The business environment in the new millennium is becoming more competitive because of the new globalised economy and the resultant increase in customer expectations. In response, companies are increasing their competitiveness through more efficient and effective Knowledge Management (KM). Increasing a company’s competitiveness there-fore means increasing its knowledge base through inter alia innovation. The problem is that most existing KM systems are dependent on ad hoc occurrences of innovation. In contrast, the design process can systematically produce innovation and can therefore be used as a Knowledge Creation Management tool. The process whereby New Product Design systematically uses existing knowledge and produces new knowledge, is represented in a conceptual model, which can be used as a knowledge creation management tool. The paper thus provides a managerial approach that companies can use to systematically create new knowledge and thus contribute to competitiveness. From this approach interesting research questions arose
Citation
Groenewald, J. (2004) Increasing Competitiveness Through the Application of Product Design as Knowledge Creation Management., in Redmond, J., Durling, D. and de Bono, A (eds.), Futureground - DRS International Conference 2004, 17-21 November, Melbourne, Australia. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2004/researchpapers/161
Increasing Competitiveness Through the Application of Product Design as Knowledge Creation Management.
The business environment in the new millennium is becoming more competitive because of the new globalised economy and the resultant increase in customer expectations. In response, companies are increasing their competitiveness through more efficient and effective Knowledge Management (KM). Increasing a company’s competitiveness there-fore means increasing its knowledge base through inter alia innovation. The problem is that most existing KM systems are dependent on ad hoc occurrences of innovation. In contrast, the design process can systematically produce innovation and can therefore be used as a Knowledge Creation Management tool. The process whereby New Product Design systematically uses existing knowledge and produces new knowledge, is represented in a conceptual model, which can be used as a knowledge creation management tool. The paper thus provides a managerial approach that companies can use to systematically create new knowledge and thus contribute to competitiveness. From this approach interesting research questions arose