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NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd

Analyse av trender innen kommersialisering og digitalisering av høgteknologisk maritim kompetanse

Alternative title: Analysis of commercialization and digitalization trends within the advanced manufacturing and maritime industry

Awarded: NOK 1.7 mill.

The high environmental dynamism relevant for this thesis derives from two main challenges. First, during the second half of 2014, the oil price experienced a steep decline after several years of a steady price over $100 per barrel. The steep decline resulted from several shocks in the market, and the specific single reasons are discussed as shift in supply chain with the production of unconventional oil (such as shale oil), shifts in OPEC policy, weakening in global demand and economic growth. Independent of the discussion of the individual drivers, the results for industries dependent on the oil price is essentially the same - it poses significant monetary challenges and a decisive need to cut costs and reduce the costs of non-quality of products and services, and simultaneously it sharpens the competitive pressure. Second, the speed at which technology advancements are made is accelerating, products and services are increasingly being digitalized, and organizations need to be both agile and responsive to its market conditions. Technological components are becoming smaller, faster, have higher computational power, are more energy efficient, and most importantly ? the cost is reduced to a fraction of what it was when the technology was first introduced. This is driven by new opportunities and application areas requiring high computation power with requirements to energy efficiency such as autonomous vehicles and vessels, and devices connected to the industrial internet of things (I-IoT). The developments will materialize in the form of co-development, better coordination and integration, and new architecture for computing. These new capabilities within computing and the cost benefit of these systems, once developed and integrated at the system level connected to cloud solutions (also known as cyber-physical systems), opens myriads of opportunities for technology-intensive industries and represent a new paradigm for manufacturing. This thesis context has been the advanced manufacturing industry that is part of the maritime industry, which is undergoing these challenges and restructuring due to them. As a result, access to capital is a central delimitating factor for technology development and acquisition. Moreover, this challenge is recognized through governmental initiatives to re-industrialize national manufacturing capabilities, such as the German Industrie 4.0, the British Catapult and the Norwegian Catapult. The thesis focus on the complex process of acquiring and commercializing novel technology through inter-organizational collaboration. Since focal organizations can no longer solely bear investments and capital expenditures to access state-of-the-art operating tools and methods, they increasingly depending on collaborating with external partners through alliances - acquiring needed resources and capabilities. Inter-organizational collaboration, including collaborating with competitors, facilitate such opportunities of sharing costs, risks and uncertainty. More specifically the thesis explores best practices of how to transition from exploration (innovation) to exploitation (commercialization), the interplay between internal and external resources, and the re-integration of acquired new knowledge and technology, addressing these processes specific challenges and influence on business models.

This thesis has provided insight into best practices which were published through Procedia CIRP. Enabling technology for the advanced manufacturing industry were identified and its implications on business models were reviewed and discussed through exploring four scenarios for digitalization. The thesis has also provided in-depth understanding of the complex phenomenon of coopetition, the mechanisms of collaborating with competitors, which is found to be a key enabling force for the regions high innovation speed which is a source for competitive advantage.

Project Summary: In a situation with a growing demand for customization, where standard products has fragmented in many markets, and niche markets becoming smaller (Strandhagen et al. 1999), cost reduction still is an important focus in a marked of compe titive company's worldwide. Imbedded in customization is the expectation of improvements and accumulation of knowledge and experiences manifested as innovation. In order to compete and to live up to the firm's ideology and values, Rolls-Royce has committe d to innovate. The PhD project will focus on identifying strategies for production that facilitate production of low volume and technology intensive products that are productive, cost effective and are flexible in regards to changing markets and innovati on. The intention with the project is to generate and implement new knowledge that can be commercialized.

Funding scheme:

NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd