Prototyping in practice – Paths and partners for testing novel industrial product and service ideas

Senni Kirjavainen*, Simo Lahdenne, Tua Björklund

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference article in proceedingsScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Prototyping is a core activity in developing new products, processes, and organisations, to mention a few. This paper describes the prototyping activities of 31 engineering design professionals in a high-technology industrial company, examining the distribution of different types of activities across different phases of development based on thematic interviews. Examining 62 prototyping and testing pathways, we found that most prototyping paths started with the practitioners’ own activities, which was also more likely to lead to paths with more prototyping steps than if the first prototyping activity took place with a stakeholder. Overall, the paths were short, indicating a lack of iteration. Both internal and external stakeholders were involved in collaborative prototyping. This collaboration was enabled by personal and unit-level relationships and different stakeholders were involved in different phases of development. Taken together, our results suggest that practitioner attention in prototyping may focus on latter development phases and demonstrate less iteration than what literature might suggest, with opportunities for prototyping highly dependent on personal networks in the high-technology context in the absence of flexible prototyping budgets.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2nd Design Factory Research Conference
Subtitle of host publicationContributions for 'Designing for Multiplicity', October 5th - 6th 2023
PublisherAalto-yliopisto
Pages56-59
Number of pages4
ISBN (Electronic)978-952-64-9638-2
Publication statusPublished - 2023
MoE publication typeA4 Conference publication
EventDesign Factory Global Network Research Conference - Ankara, Türkiye
Duration: 5 Oct 20236 Oct 2023
Conference number: 2

Conference

ConferenceDesign Factory Global Network Research Conference
Abbreviated titleDFGN
Country/TerritoryTürkiye
CityAnkara
Period05/10/202306/10/2023

Keywords

  • prototyping
  • collaboration
  • idea advancement

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