The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the case for accelerated New Product Development (NPD) has become increasingly compelling at both a theoretical and practical level. As one of the most important production processes before the launch of new products, ramp-up has become a key for ent...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
|
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/58033/ |
| _version_ | 1848799516533194752 |
|---|---|
| author | Li, Kunlian |
| author_facet | Li, Kunlian |
| author_sort | Li, Kunlian |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the case for accelerated New Product Development (NPD) has become increasingly compelling at both a theoretical and practical level. As one of the most important production processes before the launch of new products, ramp-up has become a key for enterprises to accelerate NPD. Poor ramp-up performance could contribute to the failure of making profit for the new product. However, approximately 60% of enterprises failed to maximize their ramp-up performance (Bischoff, 2007; Li et al., 2014). In contemporary studies, learning is one of the most concerned factors studied by researchers that affect ramp-up performance. Also, in order to reduce costs and production time, more and more manufacturing companies begin to incorporate product and process modularity into the R&D and production stages. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore whether learning and modularity can improve ramp-up performance. Furthermore, although modularity has improved the company's performance, its impact on learning has also been regarded as of concern to manufactures during the ramp-up phase. This study also explores how modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between leaning and ramp-up performance. Empirical data were collected from five cases of traditional and electronic Chinese manufacturing industries. The result demonstrates that learning has a positive impact on ramp-up performance and modularity can reduce production time and promote product quality which means improving ramp-up performance as well. Moreover, modularity has a negative moderating effect on internal learning but appears to play a facilitating role in promoting the ramp-up performance improved by external learning. The results of this study provide practical suggestions for manufacturing enterprises which apply modularity to improve their ramp-up performance. Such enterprises can improve their ramp-up performance by adopting modularity and learning as hybrid systems in production because the improvement of modularity does not always hinder learning's impact on ramp-up. Thus, the manufacturing companies can explore a way to improve ramp-up performance by combining modularity and learning to make the trade-off between "long-term learning" and "rapid returns". |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:36:55Z |
| format | Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-58033 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:36:55Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-580332022-12-02T14:40:57Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/58033/ The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance Li, Kunlian In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the case for accelerated New Product Development (NPD) has become increasingly compelling at both a theoretical and practical level. As one of the most important production processes before the launch of new products, ramp-up has become a key for enterprises to accelerate NPD. Poor ramp-up performance could contribute to the failure of making profit for the new product. However, approximately 60% of enterprises failed to maximize their ramp-up performance (Bischoff, 2007; Li et al., 2014). In contemporary studies, learning is one of the most concerned factors studied by researchers that affect ramp-up performance. Also, in order to reduce costs and production time, more and more manufacturing companies begin to incorporate product and process modularity into the R&D and production stages. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore whether learning and modularity can improve ramp-up performance. Furthermore, although modularity has improved the company's performance, its impact on learning has also been regarded as of concern to manufactures during the ramp-up phase. This study also explores how modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between leaning and ramp-up performance. Empirical data were collected from five cases of traditional and electronic Chinese manufacturing industries. The result demonstrates that learning has a positive impact on ramp-up performance and modularity can reduce production time and promote product quality which means improving ramp-up performance as well. Moreover, modularity has a negative moderating effect on internal learning but appears to play a facilitating role in promoting the ramp-up performance improved by external learning. The results of this study provide practical suggestions for manufacturing enterprises which apply modularity to improve their ramp-up performance. Such enterprises can improve their ramp-up performance by adopting modularity and learning as hybrid systems in production because the improvement of modularity does not always hinder learning's impact on ramp-up. Thus, the manufacturing companies can explore a way to improve ramp-up performance by combining modularity and learning to make the trade-off between "long-term learning" and "rapid returns". 2019-09-04 Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/58033/1/4341646-N14C28%20The%20Impact%20of%20Learning%20and%20Modularity%20on%20Production%20Ramp-UP%20Performance.pdf Li, Kunlian (2019) The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)] |
| spellingShingle | Li, Kunlian The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title | The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title_full | The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title_fullStr | The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title_short | The Impact of Learning and Modularity on Production Ramp-UP Performance |
| title_sort | impact of learning and modularity on production ramp-up performance |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/58033/ |