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EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE ON SYSTEM GENERATION ENGINEERING BY THE EXAMPLE OF THE IPHONE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Felix Pfaff ,
Gregor Theodor Götz ,
Simon Rapp  and
Albert Albers
Felix Pfaff*
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Gregor Theodor Götz
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Simon Rapp
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Albert Albers
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
*
Pfaff, Felix, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, felix.pfaff@kit.edu

Abstract

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Industrial practice shows that products are developed in generations. Innovation success with complex technical systems can only be achieved economically by using existing solutions as references. These references come from predecessors, competitors, and even industry-external sources. The model of SGE – System Generation Engineering describes these relationships. The iPhone is often used as an example of an innovative product developed in generations. Multiple studies have examined the iPhone. However, none of these studies systematically considers the influence of the product context on references and variations. In this contribution, an evolutionary descriptive model based on the model of SGE is applied to 15 iPhone product generations. The central result is an overview of the variation shares over the generations and the relationships between context factors, reference-based variation activities, and innovation success and hypotheses for causalities. This is one of a series of case studies to investigate these causalities. The study showed how the iPhone remained successful in its context: not through a high new development share, but through strategically placed variations and the use of references from various sources.

Keywords

InnovationProduct modelling / modelsDesign methodsDesign management
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 3: ICED23 , July 2023 , pp. 1715 - 1724
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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