Strategic Importance of Rapid Prototyping Technologies

 

Increasingly companies are attaching greater importance to the need to differentiate their product and service offerings in order to remain competitive. Typically, firms are:

adding new technologies to their products to differentiate;

forming alliances with their customers;

adding service features to their manufactured product offerings;

reducing time to market for new products;

reducing the number of suppliers and forming longer-term relationships and alliances with those that remain;

expanding their product range; and

reducing their cost base to become the lowest cost producer.

Rapid prototyping technologies have the potential to contribute something to the achievement of most, if not all these actions. How this is so is described in more detail in Chapter 3 of the Management Report.

When addressing rapid prototyping technologies, seven major strategic issues need to be explored (see the Management Report for more details):

the strategic nature of the technologies - aspects of rapid prototyping which take investment decisions beyond the realm of short-term return on investment calculations;

the technologies as enablers of new strategies - the new business and marketing strategies that can be pursued as a result of using these technologies;

the impact of rapid prototyping on the achievement of business objectives - the specific business objectives that can be directly affected by applying the technologies;

strategic aspects of organisational and cultural changes - what organisational and culture changes does the business strategy itself demand;

development of change competencies - applying rapid prototyping technologies to achieve operational change competency, and developing tactical and strategic change competencies to enable continuing developments in rapid prototyping to be deployed to satisfy existing business objectives and to develop new strategies;

development and exploitation of knowledge - using existing knowledge and developing new knowledge for competitive advantage.

 

Please pick an item from the menu below:

What are Rapid Prototyping Technologies?

Strategic Importance of Rapid Prototyping Technologies

Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing Strategy

Benefits of Rapid Prototyping Technologies

Rapid Prototyping Vendors

Rapid Prototyping - Questions and Answers

Spare Parts Made on the Spot - Article from the Financial Times

Rapid Prototyping Cuts Development Costs

Report Warns About Hidden Cost of Prototyping

Rapid prototyping processes give industry the potential to break with accepted practices, and an opportunity for firms to innovate

Rapid Prototyping for Competitive Advantage: Technologies, Applications and Implementation for Market Success

Rapid Prototyping Technologies: An Implementation Guide

Rapid Prototyping Technologies: An Executive's Guide

Rapid Protyping Technologies Executive Note

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