Impacts of IoT adoption on NPD processes: optimization and control

Abstract

Purpose – The Internet of Things (IoT) real-time data collection can help to more efficiently optimize and
control companies’ internal processes. Prior research analyzed IoT benefits and potential applications.
Nevertheless, there is little empirical evidence and theoretical understanding of how IoT impacts new product
development (NPD). This article aims at narrowing this gap.
Design/methodology/approach – In total, 54 case studies were selected from an IoT database – IoT ONE.
IoT ONE has a section on NPD. NPD was divided into three phases: discovery, development and
commercialization. The adopted IoT technology maturity level was also analyzed. A content analysis was
carried out to identify the impacts of IoT in NPD.
Findings – This study’s findings capture the emerging patterns of IoT adoption and its impact on NPD. Of the
total, 33 IoT adoption cases in the sample were in the machinery and equipment sector. Adopted technologies
were at least two years old in 85% of the sample. Only 15% adopted cutting edge technologies (less than 2 years
old). Key actors (e.g. vendors) facilitate IoT adoption. By a small margin, the larger impacts of IoT were in the
commercialization phase, where it was primarily applied to improve and optimize production processes, to
better execute and synchronize new products launching, and to increase the factories’ productive capacity. In
the discovery phase, IoT was mainly used to identify new opportunities in the market and to collect customer
data, to generate a better customer experience. In the development phase, IoT allows greater integration across
departments, increasing internal collaboration and allowing more flexible NPD.
Originality/value – Many articles studied the impact of information technologies in NPD. Few address the
impact of IoT in NPD. IT tells about the impact of better communications with relevant people. IoT tells about
machine acquired information and knowledge. This is new, much broader and deals with quite different
impacts on NPD.