An Appraisal And Development Research Of The Product Platform To High-tech Enterprises

Nowadays, with the globalization and huge progress of information technology, the competition in world wide is fiercer than ever before. The competition between enterprises has focused on meeting individual needs quickly, that is called individualization, because the lifecycle of product is going shorter and shorter, and the innovative speed of new product is going faster and faster. In the circumstances, it has become a very important aspect for enterprises especially for high-tech enterprises to improve product individualization and improve the capability of innovation in order to attain and keep competitive advantages.The using of product platform and product family concept in practice is an effective approach to solve the conflict between product variety and short delivery time. But it is not easy to find papers which related theories and methods about product platform research, even though the R&D strategy based on platform and product family has much more advantages than the development of sole product.The main goal of this dissertation is that to supply a newly managing model which can guide the R&D to effectiveness and efficiency to enterprise high level managers, and to supply useful tools to project managers to accelerate the product development and delivery, to meet customers' individual needs quickly, to improve the competitive advantages.The dissertation is based on related theories of management and economics, and is guided by innovation theory and product platform theory. It combines qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, theories and demonstrations to explore some links between theories and practices. Obviously, many problems product platform related such as selecting of innovative product and evaluation of product platform, need quantitative analyses based on qualitative description and theoretical analyses. Others such as evaluation of platform strategy, risk assessment, and performance evaluation are analyzed by arrangement analysis, fuzzy integrated evaluation. The main contents and conclusions of this researching are enumerated as the following one by one.First is the researching of product platform strategy theory and assessment of product platform strategy for high-tech enterprises. In the dissertation, strategic concepts and theories are summarized, and the characteristics of product platform strategy for high-tech enterprises are analyzed. As an example, one kind of product platform, core product, and core technology of a company which supplies monitoring systems to market are analyzed. From the angle of view of enterprise competitive advantage theory, the dissertation performs the evaluation of product platform strategy for high-tech enterprises, designs a product platform strategy based on enterprise core competitive advantage, analyzes some basic characteristics of core competitive advantage such as values-based, distinctive, dynamic sustainable, difficult to imitate, builds an index system of product platform strategy evaluating based on core competitive advantage. In the index system, weights of items are confirmed by arrangement analysis, evaluating is performed by fuzzy integrated evaluation. A case analysis about a platform strategy in a monitoring product company is described.Second, a new framework is constructed to measure the product platform performance. This dissertation extends Balance Score Card into new field. Through adding evaluation of technical dimension, giving weight to social ecological environment and future progress, the Enhanced Balance Score Card for Product Platform (EBSCPP) is brought up which is a performance measurement system built on six aspects including economic benefits, social ecological benefits, customer, technical capability, learning and innovation, operating management. In this measurement system, indexes are set up according to performance measurements of product platform and technical innovation. Indexes' weights are confirmed by arrangement analysis method, and achievements are calculated by weighted fuzzy logical deduction method, the model supplies a useful tool to accurately evaluate the result of product platform development.Third, two modes of platform development for high-tech enterprises are given and demonstrated in this dissertation. It analyses platform development in high-tech enterprises from angle of view of transaction cost theory, brings up two kinds of modes about product platform development in high-tech enterprises which are interior mode and exterior mode. Based on two modes, the dissertation studies risk analysis and assessment for the development of product platform in high-tech enterprises. Platform development risk and the risk assessment are summarized in this paper. Based on risk analysis about product platform development including technical risk, marketing risk, financial risk, segment risk, manufacturing risk, and management risk, an arrangement analysis evaluation model is built. After the risk evaluating of a platform project in a monitoring product company, some preventive and control measures are suggested.