158 Food product development 4.2.1 Strategic directions for knowledge It is management's role to ensure that there are the technological knowledge and capabilities to fulfil the companys overall innovation strategy and to implement product development strategies for the company. It is important to understand where they have been, where they are at present and where they are going. In the 1990s, there was a spurning of historical knowledge, which ended many times in reinventing the wheel. Today, there is recognition that there is a need to store reasonable percentage of this knowledge in a codified form for the future, because of the much greater turnover of staff and the loss of tacit knowledge. Total quality management introduced much more recording of production and product quality information. Now improved information systems make it much easier to store and retrieve knowledge of formulations and processing differences. Product formula tion is an area where there have been attempts to develop recording systems which an be used in later product development. For example using case-based systems the records of previous formulations- both successful and unsuccessful as a knowledge source with the product properties and their specifications can be retrieved to find a possible formulation for a new product(Row Over the years, this becomes a valuable source of company explicit knowledge hich can lead also to fundamental knowledge in the specific area of the company This is taking the tacit knowledge learned by experience and building it into generally available explicit knowledge Management needs to ensure that there is the needed knowledge in the company for their product development plans to be carried out. But there is al ways the question of how much money should be spent on knowledge in the company both in people's minds and in recorded knowledge how much on people and how much on an information technology system? Then how should this be split between the different stages of the product development project? If one looks at the stages of the product development project and the expenditure of money and man-days Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1988)in Fig. 4.3, then we could say that the knowledge created is related to the man-days expended in gaining it. Figure 4.3 shows how the expenditure increases as the project goes to commercialisation, but the proportion of man-days spent was greatest in the product design and testing stage. There is a large capital expenditure in the later stages of the PD Process at the latest stages, but it is interesting that in Cooper and Kleinschmidt's study there was not a related increase in knowledge as epitomised in the time spent by people in the project Management needs to study the pattern of knowledge creation by people in product development and decide if it is optimal Management has also to ensure there is sufficient communication in the company to make full use of the present knowledge in the There is always a need to identify the knowledge needed in the future, both short term and in the long term; there may be a need to create new knowledge in the present product development project. In the incremental innovation strategy, this is building a bank of knowledge for future projects. But when innovation is more discontinuous, maybe to a new product platform or a new processing technology, then there is need for a new knowledge base. This can be a difficult4.2.1 Strategic directions for knowledge It is management’s role to ensure that there are the technological knowledge and capabilities to fulfil the company’s overall innovation strategy and to implement product development strategies for the company. It is important to understand where they have been, where they are at present and where they are going. In the 1990s, there was a spurning of historical knowledge, which ended many times in ‘reinventing the wheel’. Today, there is recognition that there is a need to store a reasonable percentage of this knowledge in a codified form for the future, because of the much greater turnover of staff and the loss of tacit knowledge. Total quality management introduced much more recording of production and product quality information. Now improved information systems make it much easier to store and retrieve knowledge of formulations and processing differences. Product formula￾tion is an area where there have been attempts to develop recording systems which can be used in later product development. For example using case-based systems, the records of previous formulations – both successful and unsuccessful – are used as a knowledge source with the product properties and their specifications, which can be retrieved to find a possible formulation for a new product (Rowe, 2000). Over the years, this becomes a valuable source of company explicit knowledge, which can lead also to fundamental knowledge in the specific area of the company. This is taking the tacit knowledge learned by experience and building it into generally available explicit knowledge. Management needs to ensure that there is the needed knowledge in the company for their product development plans to be carried out. But there is always the question of how much money should be spent on knowledge in the company both in people’s minds and in recorded knowledge – how much on people and how much on an information technology system? Then how should this be split between the different stages of the product development project? If one looks at the stages of the product development project and the expenditure of money and man-days (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1988) in Fig. 4.3, then we could say that the knowledge created is related to the man-days expended in gaining it. Figure 4.3 shows how the expenditure increases as the project goes to commercialisation, but the proportion of man-days spent was greatest in the product design and testing stage. There is a large capital expenditure in the later stages of the PD Process at the latest stages, but it is interesting that in Cooper and Kleinschmidt’s study there was not a related increase in knowledge as epitomised in the time spent by people in the project. Management needs to study the pattern of knowledge creation by people in product development and decide if it is optimal. Management has also to ensure there is sufficient communication in the company to make full use of the present knowledge in the company. There is always a need to identify the knowledge needed in the future, both short term and in the long term; there may be a need to create new knowledge in the present product development project. In the incremental innovation strategy, this is building a bank of knowledge for future projects. But when innovation is more discontinuous, maybe to a new product platform or a new processing technology, then there is need for a new knowledge base. This can be a difficult 158 Food product development