Challenges for Technology Innovation: An Agenda for the Future

Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Smart Manufacturing (S2M 2016), October 20-22, 2016, Lisbon, Portugal

Fernando da Silva, Helena Maria Bártolo, Paulo Bártolo, Rita Almendra, Filipa Roseta, Henrique Amorim Almeida, Ana Cristina Lemos

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351771993
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The world is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by radical technological changes and an accelerated globalisation process. A new culture of greater resource efficiency and disruptive innovation will require new technologies, processes and materials, fostering new knowledge, innovation, education and a digital society, bringing forward new business opportunities and novel solutions to major societal challenges.

Challenges for Technology Innovation: an Agenda for the Future is the result of the 1st International Conference on Sustainable Smart Manufacturing – S2M, held at the Faculty of Architecture in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 20-22, 2016. It contains innovative contributions in the field of Sustainable Smart Manufacturing and related topics, making a significant contribution to further development of these fields. This volume covers a wide range of topics including Design and Digital Manufacturing, Design Education, Eco Design and Innovation, Future Cities, Medicine 4.0, Smart Manufacturing, Sustainable Business Models, Sustainable Construction, Sustainable Design and Technology and Sustainable Recycling.

Smart manufacturing

Sustainable smart manufacturing: Assembling innovation-friendly enterprises

M.F. Nunes & C.L. Park

ESCP Europe, Paris, France

ABSTRACT: More than a volatile trend, sustainable manufacturing has shown to be an indelible demand of stakeholders. At the same time, digital revolution virtually exploded, effectively changing not only the way firms produce, exchange and absorb data, but, essentially, their whole production process. However, moving obsolete factories into sustainable smart manufacturing may demand, among other actions, considerable investments in capital goods, at the uninterrupted risk of becoming fastly outdated. In this sense, how may firms be at the technological vanguard of sustainable smart manufacturing through the management of ideas? In the search to offer additional theoretical bases for these questions, the present work proposes a framework for the building and maintenance of innovation-friendly business models, specifically designed to encourage the emergence, the exchange and the implementations of new ideas, supporting companies on the numerous challenges of the sustainable smart manufacturing era.

1 INTRODUCTION

In light of progressively competitive environments, holding either sustainable or operational efficient manufacturing seems to be no longer enough. If by one side the pressure for products to be manufactured “consistently faster, exactly on time and with no damage” (Mentzer et al., 2001:2) steadily increases, on the other, “sustainable management has become a serious demand of society, as the ways through which organizations operate seem to be relevant to a wide range of publics” (Fracarolli Nunes, 2015:15). In consideration of the constant quickening of digital change, firms face the challenging agenda of bringing together sustainable and efficient manufacturing, moving the management of ideas to the spotlight of innovation in manufacturing processes.

In this sense, sustainable smart manufacturing would comprehend a link between profit-oriented and social and environmental responsible behaviors, as it may meet the expectations of a wide range of stakeholders (e.g. consumers, investors, suppliers, governments, local communities). Nevertheless, more than a source of competitive advantage, the capacity to innovate (or to successfully respond to disruptive changes of the environment) may be faced by managers as a matter of organizational survival (Christensen, 1997). Within this reasoning, an urgent question emerges: How may firms be at the technological vanguard of sustainable smart manufacturing through the management of ideas?

In the search to stretch the theoretical bases around this issue, the present study develops an ‘idea-management-based’ theoretical framework, specifically oriented to the building and maintenance of an innovation-friendly business model. In the conduction of such task, in section 2 we present a literature review on the relevant questions around smart manufacturing, sustainable operations and on the relation between new technologies, innovation and disruptive risks. Following these structural discussions and based on the delimitation of eight distinct constructs, we propose our theoretical model in section 3. Section 4, in turn, brings a discussion on our framework, highlighting both the theoretical and practical implications of our study, and our conclusion, followed by recognition of limitations and suggestion for future research in section 5.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Smart manufacturing

The term ‘smart’ seems to be employed to designate those products or processes considered more dynamic, more technological or more efficient (i.e. in terms of their demands of time, energy or resources in general) than their similar. This comprehension is used in reference to a large range of cases, such as smart phones (Ballagas et al., 2006), smart cards (Messerges et al., 2002) and smart grids (Farhangi, 2010), for instance. Inner to this view, from a broad sense, smart manufacturing could be understood as a more evolved, skilled, high-tech and profitable form of transforming raw material into valuable products, either for final consumers or to supply chain partners. A more formal definition is provided by Davis et al. (2012:145). Accordingly, smart manufacturing may be portrayed as “the dramatically intensified and pervasive application of networked information-based technologies throughout the manufacturing and supply chain enterprise”. Still conforming to the authors, smart manufacturing may be seen as playing a central role on a business shift towards a demand-dynamics economics, either as a cause or a response to it.

On what relates to the contribution of smart manufacturing to sustainability, it may derivate from its orientation towards the maximization of operational performance, what inherently implies in a lower use of energy and material (SMCL, 2011). However, despite its numerous argued advantages, the implementation of Smart Manufacturing Systems (SMS) faces several obstacles. Among other factors, authors such as Jung et al. (2015) point to the complexities in the alignment of strategic goals and operational performance through the diverse levels of manufacturing systems as a main difficulty in that direction.

Beyond the booming academic interest, the relevance of smart manufacturing may be also perceived due to the myriad practice-oriented actions developed around it. As discussed by Feeney et al. (2015), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recently developed a new standard specifically intended to support manufacturing enterprises in the development of smart manufacturing systems. Entitled “Managed Model Based 3D Engineering” (ISO 10303-242), it would compose a group of standards called STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data). The following section approaches some of the main sustainability issues in the optic of manufacturing enterprises, as follows.

2.2 Sustainable manufacturing

Sustainability is typically related to the simultaneous meeting of social, environmental and economic demands of societies (Elkington, 1997). Coherently with this view, sustainable manufacturing would be comprehended as those systems capable to synchronously accommodate the pressures for profit generation without compromising firms’ responsibilities with local communities, the fauna and the flora which they neighbor, as well as any of their stakeholders.

All these three objectives place different dares to the conduction of businesses, assuredly potentiated by the complexities arising from the constant developments of new manufacturing technologies. However, some actions may be particularly useful in addressing more than one goal at the same time. Some sustainable and sustainability enabling practices, such as the responsible use of water, lower use of energy, waste management, reverse logistics, recycling, life cycle assessment and the use of renewable resources or inputs (Fracarolli Nunes & Lee Park, 2016) shall increase the economic viability of manufacturing while also diminishing its social and environmental impacts.

From this view, at the same time the implementation of new technologies may work as a source of competitive advantage, it may also impose prohibitive operational costs to firms. In the first case, the shift into a smart manufacturing system may decisively help companies to implement more rigid controls of stocks, utilization of material, energy consumption and so on, what may be reflected in both economic and environmental efficiency. On the other hand, in order to avoid, or at least minimize, the risks of being taken by surprise by disruptive technological innovations (Bower & Christensen, 1995), firms may benefit from being themselves at the innovation edge of sustainable smart manufacturing. The next section approaches the risks organizations may face from the emergency of technological disruptive innovation.

2.3 New technologies, innovation and disruptive risks

Back in the mid 1980’s, authors such as Wheelwright & Hayes (1985) alerted to the competitive difficulties faced by American companies due to the development of superior manufacturing capabilities by foreigner competitors. According to the authors, due to the long term negligence to the questions, the issue had become a case of survival for US manufacturers. In the course of time, and especially with the continuous digital revolution, manufacturing firms came to face new and even more aggressive perils to their continuity.

Among other issues, technological advances such as the numerous applications of big data (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013), direct 3D printing (Highley et al., 2015), RFID-based wireless manufacturing (Huang et al., 2008), or cloud computing/manufacturing (Xu, 2012), to name a few, may be comprehended as placing huge opportunities for the reach of competitive advantages, but also considerable threats to manufacturing companies. As discussed by Jung et al. (2015), the emergence of new technologies that enable rapid and boundless information flows within systems may inherently disrupt ongoing manufacturing processes, as they require firms to offer quicker and more effective responses.

From this perspective, Christensen (1997) approaches technological disruptive innovation as a potential cause for well-managed firms of the most diverse sectors to fail. According to the author, even constantly innovative companies are at risk of disappearance due to the materialization of new technologies. However, the facilitation of suggestions and the implementation of ideas may offer valuable contributions to innovation (Axtell et al., 2000). In the following section, we further develop this question presenting our circular model for the management of ideas for sustainable smart manufacturing innovation.

3 PROPOSED THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Clark & Staunton (1989) highlight the conflict between efficiency and innovation-driven organizational focus, with the latter being usually neglected or overlooked by managers. Additionally, the authors propose the concept of exovation, which is interpreted by Johannensen (1994:4) as “what has to exist in an organization to ensure full utilization o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Committee members
• Sustainable design and technology innovation
• Eco-design and eco-innovation
• Design and digital manufacturing
• Smart manufacturing
• Sustainable recycling
• Design education
• Future cities
• Medicine 4.0
• Sustainable business models
• Sustainable construction
• Author index