Technology Integration And Reuse In The Development Of Equipment Products

Chinese equipment industry is confronted with the challenges of realizing integrated innovation. Equipment products have the characteristics of high-technology, customized and small batches, and the technical width and depth needed to product innovation exceed the ones of consumer products. Enterprises are required to implement technology integration on product system level. Moreover, with the project finishing, the knowledge that acquired in the process of technology integration, is facing the risk of lost and forgetting. Therefore, the product development projects in equipment industry are chosen as the research object, and the research aims at revealing the relationship between technology integration and integrated innovation performance, and exploring the mechanism that the knowledge accumulated in the former project is reused in the subsequent project.The paper adopts a combined method of case study and statistics. Firstly, the theories of complex product and systems, technology integration, and organizational learning are analyzed. On the basis of referring to the mature quantity in the research papers and Community Innovation Survey of UK, and combinting the pratices in the product development of Chinese equipment enterprises, the pre-survey questionnaire is designed for integrated innovation of equipment industry.15 projects are chosen as the objects of the pre-survey, through interviewing with the related experts, project managers, technological managers of product development, Therefore, the formal questionnaire is designed based on modifying and supplying the pre-survey questionnaire. An in-depth field survey is conducted in 142 projects, and 121 valid questionnaires are collected. Then, influence mechanism of technology integration on integrated innovation performance is analyzed based on statitical analysis. Lastly, case study is conducted to study the mechanism of technology reuse.The relationship between technology integration and integrated innovation performance is studied. Firstly, combined with the pratices in the integrated innovation of Chinese equipment indusry, theory model is conducted, and the integrated innovation is measured by pruduct innovation and process innovation. Secondly, the effects of external technology integration, internal technology integration, the intensity of user involvement, project technology base on integrated innovation performance are analyzed. Then, several research hypotheses are formed. The statistic results show that external technology integration, internal technology integration, the intensity of user involvement, project technology base are significant positive correlation with the product innovation performance, and internal technology integration, project technology base are significant positive correlation with the process innovation performance. Meanwhile, project technology base is acting a moderator separately between external technology integration and the product innovation performance, and also between internal technology integration and the process innovation performance.The mechanism of technology reuse is studied. Firstly, problems of the technology reuse in the development of equipment products are analyzed. One is that project team is temporary, and it induces the technical knowledge accumulated in technology integration facing lost and forgotten. One is that technical knowledge accumulated in the project development is mainly tacit knowledge, which is difficult to transfer. The other is that the project development is cost and time oriented, and it is easy to bring the inter-project learning less attention. Therefore, the process of technology reuses in the product development of the cases is analyzed, and the mechanism of technology reuse is studied based on the inter-project learning. The studies show that product modular decreases the inter-project technology transfer barriers, and inter-project learning is a useful way to realize technology internalization. The interacting between the inter-project learning and technology integration promote the technology reuse.