VIRTUAL REALITY in the PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT in the FASHION INDUSTRY – Application Areas, Opportunities, and Challenges of Virtual Reality in the Product Development
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VIRTUAL REALITY IN THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY – Application Areas, Opportunities, and Challenges of Virtual Reality in the Product Development Thesis for One-Year Master, 15 ECTS Textile Management da Silva Wagner, Tanita Döring, Margarete Flosdorff, Miriam Thesis number 2019.18.03 Title: Virtual Reality in the Product Development in the Fashion Industry Publication year: 2019 Author: Tanita da Silva Wagner, Margarete Döring, Miriam Flosdorff Supervisor: Jenny Balkow Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Virtual Reality can be applied in the product development in the fashion industry. Therefore, the research focuses on potential areas of application as well as opportunities and challenges the implementation of Virtual Reality implies. A narrative literature review is conducted, thoroughly investigating the topic of product development and presenting the four application areas, namely Virtual Training, Virtual Prototyping, Virtual Manufacturing, and Virtual Factory, as well as identified opportunities and challenges. For the empirical part, semi-structured interviews are executed with five product developers of the fashion industry who are chosen based on a snowball sampling approach. The gathered data is evaluated using a thematic analysis. The findings of this study indicate that the areas Virtual Prototyping and Virtual Training were perceived as relevant for the product development in the fashion industry. However, Virtual Prototyping was regarded as most important, for instance, due to the decreased need for physical prototypes resulting in time and cost reductions. Further, the research shows that there are several opportunities and challenges when implementing the Virtual Reality technology in the product development in the fashion industry. This thesis indicates the potential of Virtual Reality in the product development for the fashion industry by showing major opportunities at different stages for the product development process. Nevertheless, there are several challenges that have to be considered in the implementation and handling of Virtual Reality. Keywords: Virtual Reality, product development process, fashion industry, opportunities, challenges, implementation I Table of Content List of Figures ................................................................................................................................III List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. IV List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... V 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ - 1 - 1.1 Background ........................................................................................................................ - 1 - 1.2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................. - 2 - 1.3 Purpose ............................................................................................................................... - 2 - 1.4 Systematic Procedure ......................................................................................................... - 2 - 2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................... - 4 - 2.1 Product Development ......................................................................................................... - 4 - 2.1.1 Definition and Success Factors ...................................................................................... - 4 - 2.1.2 Product Development Models ....................................................................................... - 7 - 2.1.3 Opportunities and Challenges in the Fashion Industry ................................................ - 15 - 2.2 Virtual Reality .................................................................................................................. - 17 - 2.2.1 Definition of Virtual Reality ........................................................................................ - 17 - 2.2.2 Virtual Reality in the Product Development................................................................ - 18 - 2.2.3 Areas of Application .................................................................................................... - 19 - 2.2.4 Opportunities and Challenges of Virtual Reality in the Product Development ........... - 25 - 3 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... - 28 - 3.1 Methodological Procedure ............................................................................................... - 28 - 3.2 State of the Art ................................................................................................................. - 29 - 3.3 Sampling .......................................................................................................................... - 30 - 3.4 Data Collection ................................................................................................................ - 30 - 3.5 Data Evaluation ................................................................................................................ - 31 - 4 Results .............................................................................................................................. - 36 - 4.1 Virtual Reality in the Product Development .................................................................... - 36 - 4.2 Areas of Application ........................................................................................................ - 36 - 4.3 Opportunities and Challenges .......................................................................................... - 37 - 5 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... - 45 - 5.1 Virtual Reality in the Product Development .................................................................... - 45 - 5.2 Areas of Application ........................................................................................................ - 45 - 5.3 Opportunities and Challenges .......................................................................................... - 48 - 6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ - 60 - 6.1 Answer to the Research Questions ................................................................................... - 60 - 6.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications ............................................................................. - 61 - 6.3 Limitations ....................................................................................................................... - 61 - 6.4 Further Research Recommendations ............................................................................... - 62 - References ................................................................................................................................. - 63 - Appendix ................................................................................................................................... - 69 - I Affidavit ...................................................................................................................................... - 69 - II Interview Guide ......................................................................................................................... - 70 - III Interview Information .............................................................................................................. - 71 - II List of Figures Figure 1: Framework of the literature research ..................................................................... - 3 - Figure 2: Example of a Stage-Gate system ........................................................................... - 6 - Figure 3: Process model for industrial new product development ...................................... - 10 - Figure 4: No-interval coherently phased product development model for apparel ............. - 11 - Figure 5: Apparel product development process ................................................................. - 12 - Figure 6: Overview of the methodological procedure ........................................................ - 29 - III List of Tables Table 1: Macro phase 'pre-development' ............................................................................. - 13 - Table 2: Macro phase 'development' ................................................................................... - 14 - Table 3: Macro phase ‘post-development’ .......................................................................... - 15 - Table 4: Opportunities of VR in the PD .............................................................................. - 26 - Table 5: Challenges of VR in the PD .................................................................................. - 27 - Table 6: Checklist of criteria for a good thematic analysis ................................................. - 32 - Table 7: Overview of the themes and their codes ............................................................... - 33 - Table 8: Opportunities