| Summary: | 碩士 === 元智大學 === 工業工程與管理學系 === 104 === ABSTRACT
Purpose
Innovation has become a focal point of an organization’s strategy, a crucial element for its long-term survival and it becomes even more important when considering resource availability. And although the responsibility of the innovation process lies on the company’s top management, according to the literature its rate of failure is quite considerable, anywhere from 40% to 80% depending on the experts consulted. Despite this proneness to failure, to the best of our knowledge it lacks academic research from the top manager’s perspective regarding the actions required to improve the innovation process, especially one using a systematic quality driven approach. Hence, the purpose of this research is to use quality tools and techniques to develop a quality management approach to help Executive Management Teams drive product and service innovation process in a better way.
Methodology
A conceptual framework based on the problem solving procedures is developed to guide top management. In the first phase of the process (External Environment Investigation, EEI) we apply Problem solving type of quality tools, Task Achieving type of quality tools are applied in the second phase (Strategic Decision Making, SDM) and finally the IDEO design-based approach is used in the third phase (Innovation Project Execution, IPE). Each phase includes, according with the improvement procedure method being applied, different proven effective quality tools that can be used. The main idea is to provide top managers with a guide for using quality tools and techniques that could help them to improve the innovation process.
Findings
A case study is conducted to demonstrate how the quality management approaches proposed in this research can be used as a guideline to drive the product and service innovation process. The ideas and benefits of the proposed model are further discussed.
Originality/Value
The proposed approach uses different quality tools and techniques to help top management drive the innovation process throughout its different phases: External Environment Investigation, Strategic Decision Making and Innovation Project Execution. By using a quality management approach, this research hopes to drive the innovation process in a systematic way and furthermore, take the Total Quality Management movement to the next level, promoting the development of scientific research to improve the process of innovation for products and services that meet the current needs of the world.
Keywords: Total Quality Management, Innovation, Innovation Process, Top Management
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