Frank T Piller

RWTH Aachen University · School of Business and Economics

The Internet of Production (IoP), the global and integrated use of production data, will completely reshape how organizations operate and interact with each other. We introduce how these developments will affect the usage phase including value creation and capture in the future manufacturing ecosystem. Our analysis highlights requirements and impli...

Digital twins (DTs) are virtual representations of real‐world entities like production assets, processes, or products. They are updated at a defined fidelity and frequency along the entire life cycle from development and engineering over the production or implementation of a product or process until its usage stage. Interconnected digital twins (ID...

Manufacturing firms that engage in digital transformation develop increasingly smarter versions of their tangible products to reinvigorate growth in shrinking markets. However, they often struggle with translating their investments in digitalization capabilities into actual returns in the form of sales growth. The associated technological advantage...

Many companies in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) environment are still lacking knowledge and experience of how to enter and participate in a platform-based ecosystem to gain long-term competitive advantages. This leads to uncertainty among firms when transforming into platform-based ecosystems. The article presents a structuralist approach to conceptualiz...

Digital manufacturing technologies offer many opportunities for established companies to innovate. They promote data‐driven gains in operational efficiency and enable the transformation of current business models or the creation of entirely new differentiation opportunities. However, many digital innovation projects in manufacturing fall short of t...

The use of transformer‐based language models in AI has increased adoption in various industries and led to significant productivity advancements in business operations. This article explores how these models can be used to augment human innovation teams in the new product development process, allowing for larger problem and solution spaces to be ex...

The text discusses the concept of hybrid intelligence, which is a form of collaboration between machines and humans. It describes how this concept can be used in manufacturing to help improve productivity. The text also discusses how this concept can be used to help humans learn from machines. There is a debate in the intelligence community about t...

Distant search has evolved from the open innovation literature as an efficient mechanism to access external knowledge from heterogeneous fields of expertise. Despite its popularity and proven benefits, companies face multiple barriers to benefitting from distant search. In this study, we explore a local open innovation approach in which the spatial...

Transformer-based language models are a new type of machine learning model that have shown great promise for many applications, including knowledge extraction and generation. In this paper, we explore the potential of transformer-based language models for innovation processes and identify some example use cases. We discuss the benefits of using tra...

The future of industrial manufacturing and production will increasingly manifest in the form of cyber physical production systems. Here, Digital Shadows will act as mediators between the physical and digital world to model and operationalize the interactions and relationships between different entities in production systems. Until now, the associat...

Transferring the idea of the Internet to the manufacturing landscape—the Internet of Production (IoP)—fundamentally changes our understanding of how products are developed, produced, and utilized. A key concept of the IoP is digital shadows that connect data, products, and equipment and are shared in cross-organizational data spaces. These developm...

Die Arbeitsgruppe „Digitale Geschäftsmodelle“ stellt zehn Thesen auf, wie digitale Geschäftsmodelle Nach-haltigkeit in der Industrie 4.0 fördern. Frank Piller war der koordinierende Autor dieser Arbeitsgruppe. Der deutschen Industrie kommt eine besondere Verantwortung zu, den Wandel zu einer ökologisch wie sozial nachhaltigen Wirtschaft zu gestal...

We investigate what fosters or inhibits data sharing behaviour in a sample of 173 innovation management researchers. Theoretically, we integrate resource-based arguments with social exchange considerations to juxtapose the trade-off between data as a proprietary resource for researchers and the benefits that reciprocity in academic relations may pr...

In this study, we shed light on the unexplored potential of customer co-design in a mass customization (MC) setting to contribute to the promotion of sustainable consumption. We theoretically derive and empirically test several opportunities for companies to improve sustainable consumption and production in a joint effort with consumers. Our resear...

The German textile industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited resources and specialized skills producing customized technical textiles following an engineer-to-order approach. To expand their skills, SMEs form business networks. The development and production of customized technical textiles in networks are high...

Industrie 4.0 stellt einen potenziell starken Treiber für neue Geschäftsmodelle und Innovationspotenziale dar. Viele dieser Chancen sind aber bisher nicht oder nur in Teilen realisiert worden. In diesem Artikel analysieren wir 10 Thesen zur Auswirkung von Industrie 4.0 auf Geschäftsmodelle, die wir zusammen mit vielen Unternehmen 2016 in einem VDI-...

The economic strength of nations worldwide is increasingly dependent on its research systems to sustain innovation and new product and service development. Besides research, education and entrepreneurial innovation are seen as core factors to promote a dynamic and competitive modern economy and nearly all governments in the world pursue research an...

The use of Internet platforms such as open innovation platforms is a quite new strategy in innovation management that marks a rethinking from classical principles of coordination in innovation processes. Instead of relying exclusively on the internal expertise of their own researchers and developers, companies are increasingly integrating external...

This study adds to the literature on household sector (HHS) innovation by investigating how user and professional designer teams differ in their ability to translate knowledge diversity into collective creative output. We test our hypotheses on a unique data set of more than 5,000 board game design projects conducted by either teams of professional...

Many incumbents have the ambition to become ecosystem leaders when transitioning an established business model into a platform-based one. Prior research predominately has studied established consumer markets. Our study extends the empirical knowledge on ecosystem dynamics with a focus on platforms providing services based on (shared) industrial dat...

The German textile industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are characterized by limited resources and highly specialized skills. To expand their skills, SMEs organize in business networks, working closely with other local SMEs, which complement their skill set. The development of custom technical textiles is highly...

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging politics, society and the economy to an unprecedented extent. Its effects are so drastic that it requires companies and industries not only to manage the crisis in the short term, but also to develop strategic options for the future. Although we have not overcome the crisis, it is already becoming apparent that...

Kurzfassung Ziel von Mass Customization ist, von Unterschieden zwischen Kunden zu profitieren, indem bestimmte Prinzipien die effiziente Bereitstellung von Waren und Dienstleistungen ermöglichen, die den persönlichen Bedürfnissen der Kunden entsprechen. Auch in der aktuellen Diskussion um Industrie 4.0 ist Mass Customization ein häufig genanntes We...

Established organizations need to adapt their current business models (BMs) to match dynamic changes in their environment. Alternatives to the established BM usually incorporate a different logic of how value is created, offered, and captured. When selecting and implementing the best BM alternative, organizations have to make decisions on several h...

A market study of intermediaries, brokers, platforms, and facilitators helping organizations to profit from open innovation and customer co-creation. This market study surveyed 106 intermediaries, investigating their open innovation services offered, project specifics, business model, productivity, and characteristics of their participant pool. In...

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Intermediaries are an inherent part of value creation in open innovation. They connect organisations seeking external solutions for an innovation-related problem (seekers) with potential solution providers (solvers). To bridge between the innovation problem and external knowledge sources, intermediaries deploy different search strategies. This stud...

Non-renewable resources form one of the boundaries of our current linear-growth model. Moving from product-oriented to product-service systems (PSS)-based business models may contribute to the circularity of resource flows while strengthening the competitive advantage of organizations. Scholars have been studying the win-win potential of circular b...

Manufacturers operating in long tail markets attempt to generate sales by offering countless product varieties, with each targeted to one or a few customers. The research on mass customization suggests that modular products, flexible automation, a flexible workforce and effective toolkits are requisite business model elements to successfully operat...

Additive manufacturing (AM) allows to build components and finished series products directly from 3D data, without the need for tooling or other setup cost. An often discussed, but hardly investigated opportunity of AM is to establish economical and scalable local production facilities for innovating consumers (who turn into “prosumers”). In this p...

In recent years, public sector organizations have increasingly focused on citizen contribution by adopting instruments known from open innovation. By collaborating with the periphery and leveraging external knowledge, government institutions initiate social innovation and stimulate a positive change for society. This article examines the involvemen...

This articles is an introduction into a Special Issue (SI) on “Innovation in the Digital Age: From Stage-Gate to an Agile Development Paradigm?”. This issues explores whether traditional product development models such as Stage-Gate (Cooper, 1986, Cooper, 2008) are still fit for purpose in today's digital age or whether they are set to be widely re...

This paper investigates how potential backers' perception of user entrepreneur characteristics influences the success of a crowdfunding campaign. We hypothesize that the accentuation of user entrepreneur characteristics is associated with higher crowdfunding success, i.e. with the chance to reach a campaign goal successfully. Data from 963 Kickstar...

In recent years, crowdsourcing has emerged as a promising open innovation strategy for firms searching for solutions to technical problems. Previous research has shown that crowdsourcing can provide quick access to distant knowledge at relatively low costs, when compared to other forms of innovation governance such as internal sourcing or contract...

Nowadays, a highly volatile environment and the growing demand for customized products challenge manufacturing companies. Radically new technologies, such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Laser-Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF), help companies to fulfill these needs. However, due to the novelty of these technologies, research on how to evaluate the inher...

We investigate in the context of crowdsourcing how seekers can increase open innovation performance, measured as received attention by potential contributors, by making two strategic decisions: selecting innovation tasks that are well suited for crowdsourcing and choosing between the potentials of status signalling through identity disclosure versu...

Erratum to: S. Hankammer et al. (eds.), Customization 4.0, Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77556-2

Open innovation is an established approach to improve innovation performance, but many organizations have failed to embed open innovation in their innovation processes permanently and at scale. Building on an investigation of 756 international organizations, we show that the existence of distinct routines and organizational structures can explain w...

Practitioners increasingly use innovation contests to harness the knowledge of external crowds for internal innovation purposes in exchange for prize money. While some innovation contests have the objective to attract professional experts from distant fields to obtain technical solutions, other innovation contests primarily target customers or user...

This proceedings volume presents the latest research from the worldwide mass customization & personalization (MCP) community bringing together new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field. The chapters are based on papers from the MCPC 2017. The book showcases research and practice from authors that see MCP as an opportunity t...

Firms use ideation contests to generate ideas from consumers. This type of collaboration provides access to new knowledge and reveals latent consumer needs. But it also is risky, as firms give up control to an unknown crowd. Some contestants use ideation contests to post content that is unintended and unwanted by contest hosts, a behavior that repr...

Non-renewable resources are the boundaries of our current linear growth model. Among manifold strategies, moving from product-oriented business models to Product-Service Systems (PSS) may contribute to the circularity of resource flows while strengthening the competitive advantage of organizations. Scholars have already studied the benefits of circ...

When crowdsourcing intermediaries lose crowd members, they lose potential high-quality solutions in the future. As the number of contests and intermediaries grows, it is increasingly critical for crowdsourcers to meet the needs of solvers and avoid seeing them migrate to the competition. Besides winning contests, intensive communication and customi...

The not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome has been called one of the largest obstacles in innovation management, preventing effective knowledge transfer between organizational units and individuals. NIH is defined as a negatively shaped attitude towards knowledge that has to cross a disciplinary, spatial, or organizational boundary, resulting in either...

„Wert“ und „Wertschöpfung“ sind einige der am meisten verwendeten Begriffe in der Managementliteratur. Das primäre Ziel ökonomischer Aktivität ist, Wert zu schaffen. Wert wird produziert, indem Menschen mit dem ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Wissen und weiteren Ressourcen handeln. Wertschöpfung kann als die Nutzung dieses Wissens in einer arbeitstei...

Dieses Kapitel stellt interaktive Wertschöpfungsmodelle vor, die im Produktions- und Absatzbereich angesiedelt sind. Wir fokussieren uns hierbei auf die Strategie der Mass Customization, die auf eine Individualisierung von Produkten und Leistungen für einzelne Kunden abzielt, dies aber im Gegensatz zu einer klassischen Einzelfertigung (oder handwer...

Open Innovation und sieht den Innovationsprozess als einen vielschichtigen offenen Such- und Lösungsprozess, der zwischen mehreren Akteuren über die Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg abläuft. Statt sich nur auf die internen Fähigkeiten der eigenen Forscher und Entwickler zu verlassen, werden externe Problemlöser in den Innovationsprozess integriert. Dies...

Aus der klassischen industriellen Vorstellung der Wertschöpfung (die aber immer noch das Denken vieler Manager und Wissenschaftler prägt!) hat sich in einem evolutionären Prozess das neue Wertschöpfungsmodell der interaktiven Wertschöpfung (IWS) gebildet, das die klassischen Koordinationsprinzipien Hierarchie und Markt durch neue Prinzipien ergänzt...

Interaktive Wertschöpfung (IWS) beschreibt eine arbeitsteilige Zusammenarbeit zwischen Anbieterunternehmen und externen Akteuren (insbesondere Kunden) im Sinne eines sozialen Austauschprozesses. Die externen Akteure reagieren dabei auf einen offenen Aufruf zur Mitwirkung eines Herstellers, um zu einem konkreten Problem einen Beitrag zu leisten bzw....

Interaktive Wertschöpfung (IWS) steht für ein Wertschöpfungsmodell, bei dem externe Akteure, zum Beispiel Kunden, Nutzer, Fachexperten, Wissenschaftler, Handelspartner oder bestimmte Zulieferer, eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Sie reagieren dabei auf einen offenen Aufruf einer Organisation zur Mitwirkung, um für ein konkretes Problem einen Beitrag zu...

In this work, we analyze video pitches of creators in crowdfunding campaigns and focus on linguistic particularities of "lead user" entrepreneurs. Theory suggests that lead users sense needs long before they become known to the broader public and would benefit greatly from finding a solution to these needs. For our study, we consider 537 video pitc...

Mass customization and personalization (MCP) strategies aim to profit from the fact that people are different. Their objective is to turn customer heterogeneities into opportunities, hence addressing "long tail" business models. The objective of mass customization is to provide goods and services that best serve individual customers' needs with nea...

Additive manufacturing (colloquially: 3D printing) is a highly discussed topic. Previous research has argued that this technology not only has profound effects on manufacturing businesses but also on society, which demands new corporate strategies and policies alike. Thus, the development of reliable future scenarios is key for strategic planning a...

Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies in general—and in particular, Selective Laser Melting (SLM)—are characterized by a fundamentally different relationship with respect to costs, lot size, and product complexity compared to conventional manufacturing processes. There is no increase of costs for small lot sizes (in contrast to mold-based techno...

Mass Customization today is seen as a core strategy for successful enterprises. The term denotes an offering that meets the demands of each individual customer. but that can still be produced with mass production efficiency. Current developments such as 3D-printing, smart data or digital production are strengthening this trend. Strategies and examp...

In the digital era, a plethora of unstructured (consumer) data is available to companies to unlock innovation opportunities. Among these data sources are crowdfunding platforms, which serve as the litmus test for the desirability and viability of thousands of innovative ideas today. Based on the unique data on consumers' actual purchasing behavior,...

Dieses Lehrbuch vermittelt in komprimierter Form die wesentlichen Inhalte des Standardwerkes“ Interaktive Wertschöpfung“ von Ralf Reichwald und Frank Piller. Unternehmerische Wertschöpfung findet heute zunehmend nicht mehr sequentiell im Sinne einer klassischen Wertschöpfungskette statt, sondern interaktiv und iterativ zwischen einem fokalen Untern...

This proceedings volume presents the latest research from the worldwide mass customization, personalization and co-creation (MCPC) community bringing together new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field. The chapters are based on papers from The MCPC 2015 Conference where the emphasis was placed on “managing complexity.” MCPC...

Social media (SM) allow users to easily create, edit, or share content. The vast numbers of individuals that converge around sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter embody a rich source of external knowledge that could be utilized for new product development (NPD). Complementing other channels for open innovation (OI), SM can provide access to no...

This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management....