Effects of virtual product development on product quality and their influencing factors Citation for published version (APA): Jacobs, J. C., & van Moll, J. H. (2007). Effects of virtual product development on product quality and their influencing factors. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. https://doi.org/10.6100/IR631481 DOI: 10.6100/IR631481 Document status and date: Published: 01/01/2007 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.tue.nl/taverne Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Effects of Virtual Product Development on Product Quality and their Influencing Factors Copyright © 2007 by J.C. Jacobs & J.H.van Moll All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani- cal, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owners. CIP-DATA LIBRARY TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN Jacobs, Josephus C. & van Moll, Johannes H. Effects of Virtual Product Development on Product Quality and their Influencing Factors/ by Josephus Cornelis Jacobs & Johannes Hubertus van Moll. -Eindhoven : Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2007. - Proefschrift. - ISBN 978-90-386-1170-9 NUR 982 Keywords : Virtual Product Development / Virtual teams / Product Quality / Defect introduction / Defect detection / Influencing factors Effects of Virtual Product Development on Product Quality and their Influencing Factors PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, prof.dr.ir. C.J. van Duijn, voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 12 december 2007 om 15.00 uur door Josephus Cornelis Jacobs geboren te Tilburg Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren: prof.dr. R.J. Kusters en prof.dr.ir. A.C. Brombacher Copromotor: dr.ir. J.J.M. Trienekens Effects of Virtual Product Development on Product Quality and their Influencing Factors PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, prof.dr.ir. C.J. van Duijn, voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 12 december 2007 om 15.00 uur door Johannes Hubertus van Moll geboren te Veldhoven Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren: prof.dr.ir. A.C. Brombacher en prof.dr. R.J. Kusters Copromotor: dr.ir. J.J.M. Trienekens Preface Research Division and Responsibilities The research reported in this dissertation is a joint effort of both authors of this dis- sertation. To make research division and responsibilities explicitly clear, this disser- tation is divided in parts. For each part, the author (or authors) is (are) clearly indicated. The responsibilities conform to: Author The stated ‘Author’ is fully responsible for the contents and was the sole writer. Author & Co-author The stated ‘Author’ and ‘Co-author’ are fully responsible for the contents, though ‘Author’ was the main writer. The actual research division and responsibilities are as follows: Part 1 Introduction to the Research Jef Jacobs & Jan van Moll Part 2 Exploring Effects of Virtual Product Devel- Jan van Moll opment on Product Quality Part 3 Assessment of Influencing Factors Jef Jacobs Part 4 The Influencing Factors in Virtual Develop- Jan van Moll & Jef Jacobs ment Environments Part 5 Conclusions and Recommendations Jef Jacobs & Jan van Moll Conventions Glossary of Terms: The first occurrence of a specific term in body text of this doc- ument, if italic underlined, indicates that the term is included in the Glossary of Terms. If in the body text of this document such a term is in the plural form, it is VII Preface given in the singular form in the Glossary of Terms. A term underlined in the Glos- sary of Terms indicates that the term is also included in the Glossary of Terms. Chapter numbering: Chapters are consecutively numbered; they do not reflect part numbering. Table, figure and appendix numbering: Tables, figures and appendixes are num- bered in the format N-M, where N corresponds to the part number and M is a sequence number. For each part, the sequence number starts with 1. The sequence numbers for tables, figures and appendixes are independent of each other. Confidentiality of Field Information The field information, for example reported in the case studies in this dissertation, was acquired from several companies. Nearly always, it concerned sensitive infor- mation, to be treated with confidentiality. Therefore, the names of the involved companies have been withheld, but are known by the authors. Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who contributed directly or indirectly to our work. We are particularly grateful to all experts for their contribu- tion to our research project. Some people deserve a particular mention. First of all, we would like to thank our supervisors Aarnout Brombacher, Rob Kusters and Jos Trienekens for their continuous support, guidance, enthusiasm, stimulating discussions, critical notes and review of our work. Aarnout was the one that always guarded the broad lines of our work and provided directions from a helicopter view. Rob and Jos exhibited a great eye for details, where Rob, espe- cially, directed our attention to possible weaknesses and Jos, especially, encour- aged us by pointing to the strengths of our work. We have experienced this multitude of views and attention as extremely useful. We are also much indebted to Larry Glick (San Jose, USA) and Tom Stokes (Tempe, USA), both (former) colleagues and both knowledgeable practitioners in the topics we have addressed in this dissertation. Both are skilled writers (native American-English) who meticulously went through our writings and acted as lan- guage correctors, human spell-checkers and grammar-checkers. They also pro- vided many helpful content-related comments. In addition, we would like to acknowledge Robert van de Ven from ‘i-Beltran’ and Chris Barron for last-minute text corrections. Finally, we express our gratitude to René Paré from ‘Grafico de Poost’ (Eind- hoven, The Netherlands), who designed the cover of this dissertation, provided typographical advice, and took care of the printing of this dissertation. VIII Dedications It is a known fact that conducting a Ph.D. research is a time-consuming and strenu- ous undertaking. Particularly, if it is conducted in parallel with a full-time job, and in a family situation with young children, the research can be highly intrusive in personal and social life. From experience, I can now confirm this; once started, the research is in the mind almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During the course of the research, sacrifices and compromises were regularly required on the ‘home front‘. I thank my family and in particular my wife Mieke, not only for their sup- port, but above all for their understanding on all those occasions when I was either ‘physically’ or ‘mentally’ absent. It goes without saying that during a time span of over five years which it took to complete the Ph.D. research, many things happen in a person’s life. Without any doubt, the most happy events were the birth of our son Rik and daughter Anne. I really look forward to giving them the warmest place in our lives. Without any doubt, the saddest event was the sudden death of my mother. She passed away shortly after I started writing my dissertation, initiating a difficult period during which paying full attention to the writing was not always easy. Endlessly proud as she was on the achievements of any of her children, she always showed sincere interest in my study. It would not have been without the warm remembrances of her that I was encouraged to run the final mile of completing my dissertation. As a sign of gratitude for everything she did, there is nothing more appropriate to honour my mother than dedicating my entire Ph.D. effort to her. Jan van Moll IX Summary Effects of Virtual Product Development on Product Quality and their Influencing Factors Since the early 1990s, in worldwide industries, an increasing trend towards Virtual Product Development is observed. Virtual Product Development is the develop- ment of a product by a virtual team consisting of sub-teams distributed across space, time, and organization boundaries, working interdependently with a shared goal and shared responsibilities, collaborating by webs of interactive technology.