A design led innovation approach to gathering deep customer insights in the aviation industry

Research has long documented the value that design brings to the innovation of products and services. The research landscape has transformed in the last decade and now reflects the value of design as a different way thinking that can be applied to the innovation of business models and catalyst for strategic growth. This paper presents a case study of gathering deep customer insights through a design led innovation approach and reveals industry perspectives and attitudes towards the value of deep customer insights within the context of a leading Australian airport corporation. The findings highlight that the process of gathering deep customer insights encourages a design led approach to testing assumptions and developing stronger customer engagement. The richness of the deep customer insights also provided a bridge to future thought by provoking possible product, service and business innovations which aligned to the airport corporation’s vision. The implications of the study reveal how quantitative market data, which reveals broad sociocultural trends into ‘how’ and ‘what’ customers interact with within an airport, can be strongly validated and built upon through qualitative deep customer insights that explore ‘why’ those choices to interact are made. Future research is then presented which aims to widely disseminate a design led approach to innovation within internal stakeholders of the airport corporation through the development of a digital strategy.

Making sense of purpose, direction and innovation : an embedded design led innovation case study in the Australian mining industry

The mining equipment technology services sector is driven by a reactive and user-centered design approach, with a technological focus on incremental new product development. As Australia moves out of its sustained mining boom, companies need to rethink their strategic position, to become agile to stay relevant in an enigmatic market. This paper reports on the first five months on an embedded case study within an Australian, family-owned mining manufacturer. The first author is currently engaged in a longitudinal design led innovation project, as a catalyst to guide the company’s journey to design integration. The results find that design led innovation could act as a channel for highlighting and exploring company disconnections with the marketplace and offer a customer-centric catalyst for internal change. Data collected for this study is from 12 analysed semistructured interviews, a focus group and a reflective journal, over a five-month period. This paper explores limitations to design integration, and highlights opportunities to explore and leverage entrepreneurial characteristics to stay agile, broaden innovation and future-proof through the next commodity cycle in the mining industry.

Innovation in the road and bridge industry

This paper reviews innovation activity in a key service industry – road and bridge construction. Based on a large-scale Australian survey and descriptive statistics, the paper finds that there is little difference in innovation levels between different types of industry participants and that innovation is difficult to implement. The survey gathered responses from suppliers, consultants, contracts and clients and compared results across these four industry sectors. The absorptive capacity and relationship capacities of respondents were also investigated. One in five respondents had poor absorptive capacity. Suppliers were found to the most effective learners and were the best adopters of ideas from outside their organisations and consultants were the least effective. Australian construction organisations have relatively good relationship skills because relationship-based contracts are common compared to other countries. Indeed, the survey found that nearly 60% of respondents had experience with such contracts, with clients having more experience than the other three sectors. The results have implications for the measurement of innovation in project-based industries, and the relative roles of clients and suppliers in driving innovation in the construction industry. Further research will examine the extent to which particular governance mechanisms within relationship contracts lead to improved innovation and project performance.

Green skills for the construction industry

The skill shortage issues have long existed in the construction industry in countries like Australia. Couple this with the lead and lag time between market demand and resultant supply has traditionally seen cyclical fluctuation of skills demand within the construction industry. Skills demand and shortages are generally well documented and can even have a level of predictability in Australia given the tendency to have a delayed reaction to global economic downturns. Sustainability issues in the construction industry have attracted growing public awareness. Traditionally driven by ever increasing, if only gradual, mandated minimum requirements, drive towards sustainable developments is now increasingly being created by the client. As this demand increases, accordingly a demand for people with the skills to provide these services should be felt. This research examines the green skill shortage issues within the context of construction industry. Stakeholders from across relevant sectors of the built environment were engaged to ascertain the industry’s utilisation and demand for ‘green skilled’ personnel. These findings will assist stakeholders within the construction industry in negating the effects of a skills shortage in the event of accelerated demand for sustainable construction.

Pornography as creative industry

Much academic writing on pornography focuses on the genre’s exceptionalism (the ways in which it is different from other forms of culture). This paper rather focuses on its typicality as a Creative Industry. As with other Creative Industries, in the production and distribution of pornography it is producers who make most money. While a small number of on-camera performers become wealthy and powerful the majority lack creative control and are poorly paid. The careers of performers are typically short examples of “nomadic labour”. Many creative workers are involved in the production of pornography apart those in front of the camera, and the skills of these behind-the-camera creatives can be transferable across sectors. Like other Creative Industries, the pornography business is facing challenges from increased digitalization and globalization; and like other Creative Industries the solutions to these challenges lie in branding, niche marketing, and exploiting new technological possibilities.

Governance challenges in the global games industry

Current governance challenges facing the global games industry are heavily dominated by online games. Whilst much academic and industry attention has been afforded to Virtual Worlds, the more pressing contemporary challenges may arise in casual games, especially when found on social networks. As authorities are faced with an increasing volume of disputes between participants and platform operators, the likelihood of external regulation increases, and the role that such regulation would have on the industry – both internationally and within specific regions – is unclear. Kelly (2010) argues that “when you strip away the graphics of these [social] games, what you are left with is simply a button [...] You push it and then the game returns a value of either Win or Lose”. He notes that while “every game developer wants their game to be played, preferably addictively, because it’s so awesome”, these mechanics lead not to “addiction of engagement through awesomeness” but “the addiction of compulsiveness”, surmising that “the reality is that they’ve actually sort-of kind-of half-intentionally built a virtual slot machine industry”. If such core elements of social game design are questioned, this gives cause to question the real-money options to circumvent them. With players able to purchase virtual currency and speed the completion of tasks, the money invested by the 20% purchasing in-game benefits (Zainwinger, 2012) may well be the result of compulsion. The decision by the Japanese Consumer Affairs agency to investigate the ‘Kompu Gacha’ mechanic (in which players are rewarded for completing a set of items obtained through purchasing virtual goods such as mystery boxes), and the resultant verdict that such mechanics should be regulated through gambling legislation, demonstrates that politicians are beginning to look at the mechanics deployed in these environments. Purewal (2012) states that “there’s a reasonable argument that complete gacha would be regulated under gambling law under at least some (if not most) Western jurisdictions”. This paper explores the governance challenged within these games and platforms, their role in the global industry, and current practice amongst developers in the Australian and United States to address such challenges.

Analysing governance categories used on project alliances in the construction industry

In Australia, collaborative contracts, and in particular, project alliances, have been increasingly used to govern infrastructure projects. These contracts use formal and informal governance mechanisms to manage the delivery of infrastructure projects. Formal mechanisms such as financial risk sharing are specified in the contract, while informal mechanisms such as integrated teams are not. Given that the literature contains a multiplicity of often untestable definitions, this paper reports on a review of the literature to operationalize the concepts of formal and informal governance. This work is the first phase of a study that will examine the optimal balance of formal and informal governance structures. Desk-top review of leading journals in the areas of construction management and business management, as well as recent government documents and industry guidelines, was undertaken to to conceptualise and operationalize formal and informal governance mechanisms. The study primarily draws on transaction-cost economics (e.g. Williamson 1979; Williamson 1991), relational contract theory (Feinman 2000; Macneil 2000) and social psychology theory (e.g. Gulati 1995). Content analysis of the literature was undertaken to identify key governance mechanisms. Content analysis is a commonly used methodology in the social sciences area. It provides rich data through the systematic and objective review of literature (Krippendorff 2004). NVivo 9, a qualitative data analysis software package, was used to assist in this process. A previous study by the authors identified that formal governance mechanisms can be classified into seven measurable categories: (1) negotiated cost, (2) competitive cost, (3) commercial framework, (4) risk and reward sharing, (5) qualitative performance, (6) collaborative multi-party agreement, and (7) early contractor involvement. Similarly, informal governance mechanisms can be classified into four measureable categories: (1) leadership structure, (2) integrated team, (3) team workshops, and (4) joint management system. This paper explores and further defines the key operational characteristics of each mechanism category, highlighting its impact on value for money in alliance project delivery. The paper’s contribution is that it provides the basis for future research to compare the impact of a range of individual mechanisms within each category, as a means of improving the performance of construction projects.

Review and future options for computer modelling in the sugar industry

Computer modelling has been used extensively in some processes in the sugar industry to achieve significant gains. This paper reviews the investigations carried out over approximately the last twenty five years,including the successes but also areas where problems and delays have been encountered. In that time the capability of both hardware and software have increased dramatically. For some processes such as cane cleaning, cane billet preparation, and sugar drying, the application of computer modelling towards improved equipment design and operation has been quite limited. A particular problem has been the large number of particles and particle interactions in these applications, which, if modelled individually, is computationally very intensive. Despite the problems, some attempts have already been made and knowledge gained on tackling these issues. Even if the detailed modelling is wanting, a model can provide some useful insights into the processes. Some options to attack these more intensive problems include the use of commercial software packages, which are usually very robust and allow the addition of user-supplied subroutines to adapt the software to particular problems. Suppliers of such software usually charge a fee per CPU licence, which is often problematic for large problems that require the use of many CPUs. Another option to consider is using open source software that has been developed with the capability to access large parallel resources. Such software has the added advantage of access to the full internal coding. This paper identifies and discusses the detail of software options with the potential capability to achieve improvements in the sugar industry.

Alignment and differences between the Australian Water Accounting Standard and the Water Accounting Framework for the Minerals Industry

In 2012, the Bureau of Meteorology under the banner of the Water Accounting Standards Board released the Australian Water Accounting Standard 1 (AWAS 1). This standard has been in development since 2007 with key milestones being the release of the Preliminary Australian Water Accounting Standard in 2009, and the exposure draft of the Australian Water Accounting Standard in 2010. Throughout this period, the Minerals Council of Australia’s Water Accounting Framework has developed concurrently with the Australian standards and the standards have informed elements of the framework. However, the framework is not identical to the standard as the objectives between the two are different. The objective of the Water Accounting Framework is to create consistency in water reporting of the minerals industry and to assist companies reporting to corporate sustainability initiatives. The objective of AWAS 1 is to provide information to water management bodies to facilitate decisions about the allocation of water resources. Companies are to report on an annual basis, not only physical flows of water but contractual requirements to supply and obtain water, regardless of whether the transaction has been fulfilled in the reporting period. In contrast, the Water Accounting Framework only reports on flows that have physically happened. The paper will provide summary information on aspects of AWAS 1 that are most relevant to the minerals industry, show the alignment and differences between AWAS 1 and the Water Accounting Framework and explain how to obtain the information for the AWAS 1 reporting statements.

Long distance calling? Spatial preference patterns in enterprise microblogging in the retail industry

We examine enterprise social network usage data obtained from a community of store managers in a leading Australian retail organization, over a period of fifteen months. Our interest in examining this data is in spatial preferences by the network users, that is, to ascertain who is communicating with whom and where. We offer several contrasting theoretical perspectives for spatial preference patterns and examine these against data collected from over 12,000 messages exchanged between 530 managers in 897 stores. Our findings show that interactions can generally be characterized by individual preferences for local communication but also that two different user communities exist – locals and globals. We develop empirical profiles for these social network user communities and outline implications for theories on spatial influences on communication behaviours on enterprise social networks.

Micro foundations of strategic capability development : a case study within the auto industry

The importance of firms’ adaptation processes is prominent in today’s business environment which is characterised by ever changing customers, technologies, and competition. Ever since Schumpeter’s (1942) classic work strategic renewal has been found crucial for firms’ adaptation to environmental change. The role of strategic renewal in firms’ adaptation processes includes development of capabilities for the purpose of sustainability of competitive advantage against environmental changes.

Dragline swing automation

Draglines are very large machines that are used to remove overburden in open-cut coal mines. This paper outlines the design of a computer control system to implement an automated swing cycle on a production dragline. Subsystems and sensors have been developed to satisfy the constraints imposed by the task, the harsh operating environment and the mine's production requirements.

Measuring sustainability performance within the Australian energy industry

Sustainability has become crucial for the energy industry as projects in this industry are extensively large and complex and have significant impacts on the environment, community and economy. It demands the energy industry to proactively incorporate sustainability ideas and commit to sustainable project development. This study aims to investigate how the Australian energy industry responds to sustainability requirements and in particular what indicators used to measure sustainability performance. To achieve this, content analysis of sustainability reports, vision statements and policy statements of Australian energy companies listed in the 2013 PLATTS Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings and government reports relating to sustainability has been conducted. The findings show that the energy companies extensively discuss sustainability aspects within three dimensions, i.e. community, environment, and economy. Their primary goals in sustainability are supplying cleaner energy for future, and doing business in a way that improves outcomes for shareholders, employees, business partners and the communities. In particular, energy companies have valued the employees of the business as a one of the key area that needs to be considered. Furthermore, the energy industry has become increasingly aware of the importance of measuring sustainability performance to achieve sustainability goals. A number of sustainability indicators have been developed on the basis of the key themes beyond economic measures. It is envisaged that findings from this research will help stakeholders in the energy industry to adopt different indicators to evaluate and ultimately achieve sustainability performance.