The influence of the supply chain agents on the new product development's performance: an analysis based on the multi-group moderation

Este estudo buscou verificar a influencia dos agentes da cadeia de suprimentos no desempenho do desenvolvimento de novos produtos quando os agentes são analisados em conjunto. A motivação desta pesquisa veio de estudos que alertaram para a consideração da integração da cadeia de suprimentos como um constructo multidimensional, englobando o envolvimento da manufatura, fornecedores e clientes no desenvolvimento de novos produtos; e devido à falta de informação sobre as influencias individuais destes agentes no desenvolvimento de novos produtos. Sob essas considerações, buscou-se construir um modelo analítico baseado na Teoria do Capital Social e Capacidade Absortiva, construir hipóteses a partir da revisão da literatura e conectar constructos como cooperação, envolvimento do fornecedor no desenvolvimento de novos produtos (DNP), envolvimento do cliente no DNP, envolvimento da manufatura no DNP, antecipação de novas tecnologias, melhoria contínua, desempenho operacional do DNP, desempenho de mercado do NPD e desempenho de negócio do DNP. Para testar as hipóteses foram consideradas três variáveis moderadoras, tais como turbulência ambiental (baixa, média e alta), indústria (eletrônicos, maquinários e equipamentos de transporte) e localização (América, Europa e Ásia). Para testar o modelo foram usados dados do projeto High Performance Manufacturing que contém 339 empresas das indústrias de eletrônicos, maquinários e equipamentos de transporte, localizadas em onze países. As hipóteses foram testadas por meio da Análise Fatorial Confirmatória (AFC) incluindo a moderação muti-grupo para as três variáveis moderadoras mencionadas anteriormente. Os principais resultados apontaram que as hipóteses relacionadas com cooperação foram confirmadas em ambientes de média turbulência, enquanto as hipóteses relacionadas ao desempenho no DNP foram confirmadas em ambientes de baixa turbulência ambiental e em países asiáticos. Adicionalmente, sob as mesmas condições, fornecedores, clientes e manufatura influenciam diferentemente no desempenho de novos produtos. Assim, o envolvimento de fornecedores influencia diretamente no desempenho operacional e indiretamente no desempenho de mercado e de negócio em baixos níveis de turbulência ambiental, na indústria de equipamentos de transporte em países da Americanos e Europeus. De igual forma, o envolvimento do cliente influenciou diretamente no desempenho operacional e indiretamente no desempenho de mercado e do negócio em médio nível de turbulência ambiental, na indústria de maquinários e em países Asiáticos. Fornecedores e clientes não influenciam diretamente no desempenho de mercado e do negócio e não influenciam indiretamente no desempenho operacional. O envolvimento da manufatura não influenciou nenhum tipo de desempenho do desenvolvimento de novos produtos em todos os cenários testados.

A soy-based product fermented by Enterococcus faecium and Lactobacillus helveticus inhibits the development of murine breast adenocarcinoma

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

DIFFERENTIATION OF DROSOPHILA-SERIDO (ISOFEMALE LINE A95F3) AND D-KOEPFERAE (ISOFEMALE LINE B20D2) - REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION, DEVELOPMENT TIME AND POLYTENE CHROMOSOME-BANDING PATTERNS

Drosophila serido is considered to be a superspecies consisting of two species: D. serido, from Brazil and D. koepferae from Argentina and Bolivia. However this probably does not express the entire evolutionary complexity of its populations. Isofemale lines A95F3 (from Brazil) and B20D2 (from Argentina), at present representing, respectively, the first and second species, were analyzed for fertility and fecundity in pair-mating intracrosses and intercrosses, as well as for development time, banding patterns and asynapsis of polytene chromosomes in the isofemale lines and their hybrids.Although variations in experimental conditions resulted in some variability in the results, in general A95F3 fertility and fecundity were lower than in B20D2. Intercrosses of A95F3 females and B20D2 males showed lower fertility and fecundity than the reciprocal crosses, following more closely characteristics of the mother strains. This is in contrast to the results obtained by Fontdevilla et al. (An. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 81: 380-385, 1988) and may be due to the different geographic origin of D. serido strains they used in crosses to B20D2. This difference and others cited in the literature relative to aedeagus morphology, karyotype characteristics, inversion polymorphisms and reproductive isolation strongly indicate that A95F3 and D. serido from the State of Bahia, Brazil are not a single evolutionary entity, reinforcing the idea of greater complexity of the superspecies D. serido than is known today.The reproductive isolation mechanisms found operating between A95F3 and B20D2 were prezygotic and postzygotic, the latter included mortality at the larvae stage in both directions of crosses and sterility of male hybrids in intercrosses involving B20D2 females and A95F3 males. The two isofemale lines differed in egg-adult development time, which was also differently affected by culture medium composition.A95F3 and B20D2 also showed differences in the banding patterns of proximal regions of polytene chromosomes 2, 3 and X, a fixed inversion in chromosome 3 (here named 3t), apparently not described previously, and a high degree of asynapsis in hybrids.These observations, especially those related to reproductive isolation and chromosomal differentiation (including the karyotype, previously described, and the differentiation of banding patterns, described in this paper), as well as the extensive asynapsis observed in hybrids reinforces the distinct species status of A95F3 and B20D2 isofemale lines.

Product development process: Using real options for assessments and to support the decision-making at decision gates

Enterprises need continuous product development activities to remain competitive in the marketplace. Their product development process (PDP) must manage stakeholders' needs - technical, financial, legal, and environmental aspects, customer requirements, Corporate strategy, etc. -, being a multidisciplinary and strategic issue. An approach to use real option to support the decision-making process at PDP phases in taken. The real option valuation method is often presented as an alternative to the conventional net present value (NPV) approach. It is based on the same principals of financial options: the right to buy or sell financial values (mostly stocks) at a predetermined price, with no obligation to do so. In PDP, a multi-period approach that takes into account the flexibility of, for instance, being able to postpone prototyping and design decisions, waiting for more information about technologies, customer acceptance, funding, etc. In the present article, the state of the art of real options theory is prospected and a model to use the real options in PDP is proposed, so that financial aspects can be properly considered at each project phase of the product development. Conclusion is that such model can provide more robustness to the decisions processes within PDP.

A procedure to estimate parameters of a line segment taking into account its representation through pi circuits: Theoretical development

The objective of this paper is to show an alternative methodology to estimate per unit length parameters of a line segment of a transmission line. With this methodology the line segment parameters can be obtained starting from the phase currents and -voltages in receiving and sending end of the line segment. If the line segment is represented as being one or more pi circuits whose frequency dependent parameters are considered lumped, its impedance and admittance can be easily expressed as functions of the currents and voltages at the sending and receiving end. Because we are supposing that voltages and currents at the sending and receiving end of the tine segment (in frequency domain) are known, it is possible to obtains its impedance and admittance and consequently its per unit length longitudinal and transversal parameters. The procedure will be applied to estimate the longitudinal and transversal parameters of a small segment of a single-phase line that is already built.

Analytic hierarchy prioritisation of new product development activities for electronics manufacturing

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Development of a novel fermented soymilk product with potential probiotic properties

The study was carried out to test the ability of Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. jugurti, Streptococcus thermophilus and L. delbrueckii ssp bulgaricus to decrease cholesterol in vitro and to grow in the presence of bile salts. Both properties were dependent on the species under study. The cultures were also inoculated into soymilk fortified with dry milk whey powder as single or mixed starters. The physicochemical and sensory evaluations of the fermented products showed that E. faecium plus L. jugurti (ratio 1:1) is the best combination, and this mixture also produces a 43% decrease in cholesterol. © Springer-Verlag 1999.

A procedure to estimate parameters of a line segment taking into account its representation through π circuits: Theoretical development

The objective of this paper is to show an alternative methodology to estimate per unit length parameters of a line segment of a transmission line. With this methodology the line segment parameters can be obtained starting from the phase currents and voltages in receiving and sending end of the line segment. If the line segment is represented as being one or more π circuits whose frequency dependent parameters are considered lumped, its impedance and admittance can be easily expressed as functions of the currents and voltages at the sending and receiving end. Because we are supposing that voltages and currents at the sending and receiving end of the line segment (in frequency domain) are known, it is possible to obtains its impedance and admittance and consequently its per unit length longitudinal and transversal parameters. The procedure will be applied to estimate the longitudinal and transversal parameters of a small segment of a single-phase line that is already built. © 2006 IEEE.

Integration in new product development: Case study in a large Brazilian high-technology company

Proficiency in management activities undertaken in product development processes is regarded as a key competitive advantage for companies, particularly for high-tech industrial firms, which benefit from the important competitiveness factor of launching products with a differentiated technological content. This paper's objective was to identify, through case study, practices for integration between the roles of R & D with others involved in product development in a large Brazilian company of industrial automation. The results suggest some management practices to improve the integration in new products development, such as the use of employees from marketing with knowledge and experience previously gained from R & D activities and uses the heavyweight product manager to solve synchronization problems between product and technology development. © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios.

Development of a simplified transmission line model directly in the phase domain

A transmission line digital model is developed direct in the phase and time domains. The successive modal transformations considered in the three-phase representation are simplified and then the proposed model can be easily applied to several operation condition based only on the previous knowing of the line parameters, without a thorough theoretical knowledge of modal analysis. The proposed model is also developed based on lumped elements, providing a complete current and voltage profile at any point of the transmission system. This model makes possible the modeling of non-linear power devices and electromagnetic phenomena along the transmission line using simple electric circuit components, representing a great advantage when compared to several models based on distributed parameters and inverse transforms. In addition, an efficient integration method is proposed to solve the system of differential equations resulted from the line modeling by lumped elements, thereby making possible simulations of transient and steady state using a wide and constant integration step. © 2012 IEEE.

Green product development and performance of Brazilian firms: measuring the role of human and technical aspects

The goal of this study is to present and test a conceptual framework that describes the technical aspects (TA), human/organizational aspects (HOA) of the adoption of green product development (GPD) practices and the effect of these practices on firms'environmental (EP), operational (OP) and market performance (MP). To this end, after reviewing the literature on these themes, a conceptual framework with 5 hypotheses is proposed. These hypotheses were tested on 62 Brazilian companies through structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 2.0M3. The main results of this study are as follows: (a) in general, the proposed framework obtained adequate goodness of fit statistics (GoF); (b) technological factors are shown to have an influence on the adoption of GPD practices, and those practices are related to company EP, OP and MP, thus confirming 4 hypotheses of the study; and (c) one of the study's hypotheses is not validated, indicating that the relationship of human/organizational aspects to GPD must be further analyzed. This work extends the literature because: (a) the conceptual framework tested in this study establishes several concepts that have been only partially tested in the previous literature; (b) this work presents evidence about Brazil, where the themes addressed herein have not been yet been thoroughly investigated; and (c) the non-validation of the hypothesis regarding the relationship between human/ organizational aspects with respect to the adoption of product-related environmental practices requires attention. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development and validation of a rapid turbidimetric assay to determine the potency of cefuroxime sodium in powder for dissolution for injection

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Development and validation of a simple, rapid and stability-indicating high performance liquid chromatography method for quantification of norfloxacin in a pharmaceutical product

A stability-indication high performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of norfloxacin in tablet dosage forms. Optimum separation was achieved in less than 7 minutes using Eclipse Plus Zorbax C18 Agilent, 150 mm×4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm particle size column. The analyte was resolved by using a mobile phase 5% acetic acid aqueous solution and methanol (80:20, v/v) at a flow rate 1.0 ml/min on an isocratic high performance liquid chromatographic system at a wavelength of 277 nm. Linearity, system suitability, precision, sensitivity, selectivity, specific, and robustness were established by International Conference Harmonization guidelines. For stress studies the drug was subjected to photolysis, oxidation, acid, alkaline and neutral conditions. The analytical conditions and the solvent developed provided good resolution within a short analysis time and economic advantages. The proposed method not required sophisticated and expensive instrumentation.

Evaluation of maturity levels in the management of product development: case studies in the capital goods industry

In recent approaches to the management of product development process (PDP), maturity levels have attracted the attention of practitioners and researchers. The CMMI model contributes to evaluate the maturity levels and improvement of the product development process management. This paper, based on CMMI model, analyzes the practices adopted in two companies of the capital goods industry, which develop and manufacture equipment upon request. It was observed that on account of market conditioning factors and different practices adapted to PDP management, these companies are at different maturity levels. One company is at the initial level of maturity while the other at the most advanced one. It was also noted that the application of CMMI model can provide improvement to PDP management, as well as present guidelines to achieve higher maturity levels, adequate to companies' needs.

Open innovation and user s involvement in new product development: a case study in the automotive sector

Innovation is an essential factor for obtaining competitive advantages. The search for external knowledge sources for product creation, which can contribute to the innovation process, has become a constant among companies, and users play an important role in this search. In this study, we aimed to analyze user’s involvement in the product development process based on open innovation concepts. We used the unique case study research method. This study was carried out in an automotive company that has developed a project of a concept car involving user’s through the Web 2.0. With such scope, the research demonstrates that users can contribute not only with generation of ideas but also with the innovation process itself.