This book is based on the findings, issues and questions related to an ongoing decade-old research project named the Innovation Lab (www.innovation-lab.org). The research project focuses on discontinuous innovation in more than thirteen countries, most of which are European, and provides useful insights into its different challenges. It also raises several questions related to the subject, some of which are: how do firms pick up weak signals on emerging - and possibly radically different - innovation? What should firms do when these weak signals hit their "mainstream" process? What are the criteria for allocating resources to a strategic innovation project? What actions should firms take to avoid being left out by the "corporate immune system"? How should firms organize projects that often break existing rules and require new rules to be created?This book attempts to provide answers to the above mentioned questions by gathering information from the research project and also from firms that have tried exploring various ideas, models and insights to tackle discontinuous innovation. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to both practitioners and academics alike.

This proceedings volume presents the latest research from the worldwide mass customization & personalization (MCP) community bringing together new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field. The chapters are based on papers from the MCPC 2017. The book showcases research and practice from authors that see MCP as an opportunity to extend or even revolutionize current business models. The current trends of Industrie 4.0, digital manufacturing, and the rise of smart products allow for a fresh perspective on MCP: Customization 4.0. The book places a new set of values in the centre of the debate: a world with finite resources, global population growth, and exacerbating climate change needs smart thinking to engage the most effective capabilities and resources. It discusses how Customization 4.0 fosters sustainable development and creates shared value for companies, customers, consumers, and the society as a whole. The chapters of this book are contributed by a wide range of specialists, offering cutting-edge research, as well as insightful advances in industrial practice in key areas. The MCPC 2017 has a strong focus on real life MCP applications, and this proceedings volume reflects this. MCP strategies aim to profit from the fact that people are different. Their objective is to turn customer heterogeneities into opportunities, hence addressing "long tail" business models. The objective of MCP is to provide goods and services that best serve individual customers' needs with near mass production efficiency. This proceedings volume highlights the interdisciplinary work of thought leaders, technology developers, and researchers with corporate entrepreneurs putting these strategies into practice. Chapter 24 is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

Manufacturing companies have just begun to implement the concepts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) on a larger scale. Still, this area is characterized by a rapid pace of technological change, blurring boundaries between physical, digital, and biological systems, and a quickly changing growing political, economic, and social environment -- leading to high uncertainty in decision making and many questions about the future development in this field. To provide guidance and inspiration for managers and academics on the future of digital manufacturing systems, this book presents the results of an extensive Delphi study on next-generation manufacturing systems, with a projection period of up to 2030. We analyzed almost 2000 quantitative estimations and more than 600 qualitative arguments from a large panel of industrial and academic experts from Europe, North America, and Asia. The book describes each of the 24 projections in detail, offering current case study examples and related research, as well as implications for policymakers, firms, and individuals. The empirical results also allowed us to build scenarios for the most probable future along the dimensions of governance, organization, capabilities, and interfaces from both a company-internal and an external (network) perspective.

This proceedings volume presents the latest research from the worldwide mass customization & personalization (MCP) community bringing together new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field. The chapters are based on papers from the MCPC 2017. The book showcases research and practice from authors that see MCP as an opportunity to extend or even revolutionize current business models. The current trends of Industrie 4.0, digital manufacturing, and the rise of smart products allow for a fresh perspective on MCP: Customization 4.0. The book places a new set of values in the centre of the debate: a world with finite resources, global population growth, and exacerbating climate change needs smart thinking to engage the most effective capabilities and resources. It discusses how Customization 4.0 fosters sustainable development and creates shared value for companies, customers, consumers, and the society as a whole. The chapters of this book are contributed by a wide range of specialists, offering cutting-edge research, as well as insightful advances in industrial practice in key areas. The MCPC 2017 has a strong focus on real life MCP applications, and this proceedings volume reflects this. MCP strategies aim to profit from the fact that people are different. Their objective is to turn customer heterogeneities into opportunities, hence addressing "long tail" business models. The objective of MCP is to provide goods and services that best serve individual customers' needs with near mass production efficiency. This proceedings volume highlights the interdisciplinary work of thought leaders, technology developers, and researchers with corporate entrepreneurs putting these strategies into practice. Chapter 24 is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

A growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of ';long tail markets';, exploding product complexities, and the rise of creative consumers are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address these trends. Mass customization (MC) has emerged in the last decade as the premier strategy for companies in all branches of industry to profit from heterogeneity of demand and a broad scope of other customer demands.The research and practical experience collected in this book presents the latest thinking on how to make mass customization work. More than 50 authors from academia and management debate on what is viable now, what did not work in the past, and what lurks just below the radar in mass customization, personalization, and related fields.Edited by two leading authorities in the field of mass customization, both volumes of the book discuss, among many other themes, the latest research and insights on customization strategies, product design for mass customization, virtual models, co-design toolkits, customization value measurement, open source architecture, customization communities, and MC supply chains. Through a number of detailed case studies, prominent examples of mass customization are explained and evaluated in larger context and perspective.