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ProcessCEM Asia 2008.

In an exploratory inquiry, involving informants in 19 global manufacturing companies in six sectors of the process industries, ideation, and concept integration during the pre-development of non-assembled products was studied. New and previously deployed constructs and concepts related to innovation in a process-industrial context have initially been developed, refined, and empirically tested. The findings demonstrate the importance of an early integration of constructs and concepts for raw material innovation, innovation-related process technology, and product innovation, as a prerequisite for successful ideation of new or improved products in the process industries. Companies in different sectors of the process industries can implement and use the novel “integrated framework” for contextualization and conceptualization of new product ideas in their development or reconfiguration of an enhanced work process for non-assembled products.

National and international regulatory standards require industrial risk assessment, taking into account natural hazards including earthquakes, in the framework of Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA). Seismic fragility analysis of industrial components may be carried out similarly as what has been done for buildings, even though some peculiar aspects require the development of specific tools. In the present paper a contribution to the definition of a rational procedure for seismic vulnerability assessment of standardised industrial constructions in a probabilistic framework is given. The method covers a range of components of the same structural type. Seismic reliability formulation for structures is used. Both seismic capacity and demand are considered probabilistic with the latter assessed by dynamic analyses. The application example refers to shell elephant foot buckling of unanchored sliding tanks. A regression-based method is applied to relate fragility curves to parameters varying in the domain of variables for structural design.

In an exploratory survey to R&D managers in different sectors of European Process Industry, the importance and present use of a formal work process for process development has been studied. A new conceptual three-phase model for the "process development process", including the identification of production needs, process development and transfer of results to production, was also tested. The results show that only 44% of the companies in the study presently use a formal work process for process development, but the need for such a process is considered to be high. Good support was given for the new conceptual model as a starting point for further development of a company-specific "process development process".

In Process Industry, process development traditionally takes a large part of the company's total development efforts, but has nevertheless not received much attention in academic studies. As a part of a larger research project concerning process development in Process Industry, the allocation of company resources to R&D, and to process development in particular, has been investigated in an exploratory survey to R&D managers in European Process Industry (Mining & Mineral Industry, Food & Beverage Industry, Pulp & Paper Industry, Chemical Industry, Basic Metal Industry, and Other Process Industry). The results show that of the total resources for R&D, 40% was allocated to process development, and over 60% of the companies expected this figure to increase in the future. This figure not only shows the future importance of process development, but also indicates that the importance of product development in this group of companies is at present still rated higher than process development. The results from the study do not fit the most widely used theoretical models, and it is concluded that there is a need for better models with more explanatory power. The new concepts of product and process development intensity are introduced. The product and process development intensities can be looked upon as aggregated measures of individual development efforts by a company, and it is thus argued that they are of overall company strategic importance.

After a thorough literature review of the present Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology and its use in the process industry, it has been concluded that present QFD systems do not address the specific needs of this type of industry. A new QFD system has consequently been developed based on those research findings. The new system has been specially adapted to Process Industry applications and production systems that are often characterised by long chains of customers and suppliers and sometimes by lack of direct contact with end users. The use of the new system is illustrated by a simplified industrial case, and its further application in Process Industry is discussed.

Organisation and management of the product development process have been an issue in both academia and industry for over three decades. The literature on product development is growing, but Process Industry is often lacking in these discussions. Therefore, this paper focuses on linking the determinants of an effective product development process to Process Industry and the implication this may have on a traditionally very process-oriented industry by nature. Further, the paper organises the burgeoning product development literature into three main determinants: innovation type, technology strategy and organisational aspect. The selection of determinants to the conceptual framework, adjusting for Process Industry origins in previous written research material and our own empirical work of product development in Process Industry, is briefly presented at the beginning of the paper. Our literature review focuses on the product development process and builds the framework of our conceptual model detailing the elements of intra- and inter-firm processes in the product development process of the Process Industry. Our purpose is to give an increased understanding of the changed innovation pattern in Process Industry and its implication on activities concerning organisation and management of the product development process.

It goes without saying that most companies today need a product innovation work process. The importance of process innovation in many sectors of the process industries should, however, make the development of a process innovation work process a growing concern in many process-based companies. This case study describes the development of such a work process at LKAB, a producer of high-quality iron ore pellets mainly for the European steel industry. Starting with a previously published conceptual model of the work process from a research project in other process industries, the development work is initially introduced in detail. The complete work process is then presented together with a cross-functional process map, checklists and a supplementary process description. The development of the work processes was a combination of a recording of LKAB's best practices coupled with the use of externally published research results and information on work process development. Finally, experience from the development and organisational implementation is discussed. It is the opinion of the project group that if properly applied, this work process will give structure, methodological guidance and efficiency in process innovation. But reaping those rewards will require persistence and discipline at all levels of the company. The purpose of this article is to provide theoretical insight and practical guidance on how to develop an innovation work process in the process industries, specifically, a process innovation work process. The successful development of this work process was considered of such importance to LKAB technology and business development that it resulted in an overall top management initiative to develop and improve all company innovation work processes, with a view to improving innovation output, project management efficiency and organisational learning.

The development and installation of new process equipment in production plants typically require strong collaborative efforts by a process firm and its equipment suppliers. However, existing knowledge about how such supplier integration and open innovation practices should be organized and managed is scarce. The purpose of this investigation is therefore to explore how process firms can organize and manage supplier integration and open innovation practices when developing and installing new process technology. By means of a literature review and a case study of two process firms, a lifecycle perspective on procurement is adopted. Our results show that the process firms utilize different interconnected cooperative procurement procedures in different stages of the equipment's lifecycle, in order to enhance integration both in buyer-supplier dyads and among the suppliers in the project network. The contributions of the paper are summarized and illustrated in a developed lifecycle-based procurement model that guides practitioners in organizing and managing supplier integration and open innovation practices.

At present, R&D managers have little guidance on how to design organizations with respect to organizational affiliation of process innovation. While process innovation in the process industries traditionally accounts for a large share of the company's total development resources it has nevertheless not received much attention in academic studies. In this paper four variables: (1) Industry category, (2) Size of R&D organization, (3) Process innovation intensity and (4) Newness of process innovation are statistically tested against the organizational affiliation of process innovation, based within either R&D or production. The study provides new empirical support for the positive association between the degree of newness and the organization of process innovations. By extensively analysing and discussing the findings in terms of both pros and cons for different organizational structural choices for process innovation, the paper also offers managers practical guidance in making organizational design decisions.

In the process industries, it is rather uncommon for companies to develop new process technology or even to manufacture new process equipment. As a result, they are highly dependent upon various kinds of equipment suppliers in their effort to acquire new process equipment in order to improve their operating performance. Two previously presented theoretical frameworks for collaboration during the innovation and operations stages have been merged for use as a research instrument in a single case study on the collaboration between a mineral producing company and a supplier of technology and equipment. The evidence from this study shows that it is beneficial for collaborating partners to engage in upfront discussions of pros and cons before entering collaborations. Collaboration during the "innovation stage" was determined to be an interesting avenue to follow for both parties. The need for collaboration during the production stage seemed to be most important during the "start-up" and "optimisation and upgrading" phases. The combined frameworks have proven to be a powerful research instrument for studying the selected kind of collaboration.

Introducing existing, improved or radically new process technology in the process industries is not finished until it is operating well at the firm’s premises; a fact of growing importance in the perspective of digital transformation. However, since it is uncommon for firms in the process industries to develop own process technology, they are dependent on suppliers for the acquisition of new equipment. Relying on the development of an organisational framework, the authors’ industrial experiences, and a literature review, success factors for inter-firm process technology transfer were initially developed. To facilitate the company use, and as an illustrative case, the success factors were afterwards included in a survey to informants in the petrochemical industries. The findings indicate that companies would benefit from the development of an internal guide for inter-firm process technology transfer. The success factors could not only be used as components in such a manual, but also serve as a “check-list” for internal improvement programs for process technology transfer.

Inter-organisational collaboration is crucial for Open Innovation adoption in order to realise, in practice, the potential benefits of the concept. However, the number of empirical studies on the activities and processes that contribute to Open Innovation adoption is relatively limited. Therefore, this chapter provides empirical evidence from the global process industry, where we have defined, tested and utilised the standardised process, evaluation methodologies and tools that engage several collaborators to improve the key business process performance of their firms. The results show that the standardised process can provide several concrete business results for the management, and can efficiently promote the adoption of Open Innovation, as well as the utilisation of the firm's tacit knowledge to further improve the business performance.