Contenu du sommaire : “Do-It-Together” and Alternative Innovations

Nowadays, the emergence of digital technologies offers consumers access to customized products to meet their individual needs. Unlike traditional manufacturing, social manufacturing facilitates this by involving consumers in the design and production processes, which requires a paradigm shift. It is characterized by the central role of the consumer in the manufacture of their own product and the use of the cyber manufacturing space to ease exchanges between different groups of individuals. Social manufacturing can rely on the Do-It-Together (DIT) paradigm to achieve this goal. In the absence of a precise definition, this article aims to define DIT by integrating the principles of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and open manufacturing and to formalize the DIT method for its operationalization, based on a review and analysis of the literature.JEL Codes: O31, O32, O33, O35, O36

Inspired by the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement, the Do-It-Together (DIT) collaborative approach was successfully trialed in 2018, hence opening the door to the application of User Driven Innovation for realizing product individualization. In the meantime, other megatrends like digitization, social media, sustainability, the circular economy, and collaborative consumption have pushed toward a renewed DIT approach for tackling social and societal issues. This article reports on an exploratory study dedicated to the identification of challenges and enabling technologies to implement the DIT approach, as well as its benefits and drawbacks. This study is based on an extensive literature review that allowed us to identify 162 articles resulting in 38 most relevant selected articles and seven Product Life-Cycle (PLC) stages. Based on these PLC stages, all identified DIT challenges, benefits and drawbacks were collected from previous empirical work described in the selected articles. In terms of findings, relevant DIT challenges, benefits and drawbacks are consolidated in distinct tables with proper references. Regarding the enabling technologies for DIT implementation, only immersive technologies at the earlier PLC stage are addressed. The implementation analysis within other PLC stages and enabling technologies like Additive Manufacturing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and IoT have to be carried out in order to identify their particular benefits and drawbacks; however, this analysis is left to future work. This study has also revealed a lack of empirical studies addressing negative impacts while there is a plethora of published studies focusing solely on positive impacts.JEL Code: L16

Existing design platforms with multi-dimensional value chains currently have deficits in terms of their business models, resulting in insufficient attention to sustainability goals and individual requirements for products of these platforms. Co-creation approaches, such as the Do-It-Together (DIT) approach for furniture, involve customers and manufacturers as equal partners in the design and production process. This allows customers to have more influence on the sustainability and individualization of products. The existing literature addresses sustainability-oriented design principles for platform business models, but concrete platform business models for multidimensional DIT co-creation of furniture are still missing. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to develop a business model for a DIT co-creation platform for the furniture industry based on a four-step business model innovation framework. This method will then be applied to a specific project scenario to derive a project-specific DIT co-creation business model. This generates knowledge about the collaborative manufacture of sustainable and customized furniture and contributes to the cross-sectoral transfer of platform business models for the development of sustainable products.JEL Codes: L23, O31

A remaining challenge to enable free and open-source hardware (FOSH) to catch up with now industry-dominant free and open-source software (FOSS) is identifying appropriate business models. In this article a new FOSH business model is discussed, specialty components for fabricators, using a case study of an open-source screw manufacturer business. The case study explores the economics of building a system that is meant to fabricate a specialty component for other businesses and prosumers working in the distributed recycling and additive manufacturing (DRAM) space. The component payback time is calculated under various scenarios, the sales necessary to provide an enticing income for a small business is quantified, and the point at which business expansion is necessary is determined. The results indicate that, to serve the burgeoning DRAM market, more than 1,000 small businesses could follow a Do-It-Together (DIT) approach of sharing FOSH designs while manufacturing and profiting locally. JEL Codes: L17, O36

The article suggests that the emergence of Fab
Labs and other collaborative spaces of innovation imply new modes of manufacturing, based on a more social, inclusive, and open approach than current industrial mass-production models. We argue that FabLabs are platforms of social manufacturing, allowing different combinations of interactions between industries and individuals, through their activities around making (producing goods from raw materials), hacking (re-using/combining produced goods), and coding (producing and re-using digital goods). The article also defines four different modes of social manufacturing depending on the technologies used (open or proprietary) and the location of manufacturing (local or industrial). The article contributes to the literature on collaborative spaces by explaining prospective scenarios of development in relationship to new modes of production. It also complements the literature by contextualizing the physical spaces where social manufacturing takes place.JEL codes: D20, L23, L60

Despite being acknowledged as key drivers for socio-economic development, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still facing major challenges such as resource scarcity and rising competition. By engaging in open collaborative product development, SMEs can benefit from the great potential of open source hardware (OSH) as a strategic source of open innovation. This is, however, associated with numerous challenges and it is lacking a solid framework for realisation. This work identifies seven key enablers that support SMEs to engage in successful collaboration with OSH communities for the co-creation of physical products. Those enablers tackle the collaboration from various aspects such as readiness, strategic alignment, governance, tools, resources, value network, and culture. They were derived through an e-Delphi study with experts from academia, industry, and the OSH domain. The seven enablers have been defined to serve as a foundation for the maturity assessment of the concept of company-community collaboration (C3).JEL Codes: O32, O34, O35, O36

Some authors, as well as practitioners, consider Open-Source Hardware (OSH) as the most disruptive innovation to have emerged from the Internet over the last few years. OSH could become crucial to attaining the Fab City objectives of making cities locally produce 50% of what they consume in the future. Understanding Open-Source Hardware Business Models (OSHBMs) is important as this could address their long-term viability in the context of transitioning to a circular economy. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the dynamics of value creation in a local context bringing together research on OSHBMs and the middleground construct. Since cities and regions have been identified as an understudied level of open innovation, the city is used as the unit of analysis and the authors conducted a qualitative explorative case study of the city of Barcelona, home to over 1340 commons-based cooperative platforms. The findings on the values and risks important to stakeholders are presented in a framework describing 4 synergy-catalyzing stages. The authors also provide a guide showing how OSH initiatives can leverage growth with external stakeholders.JEL Codes: L17, L26

Mobility as a Service (Maa
S) is the latest buzzword and a driver for disruptive change in the automotive industry. The aim of this paper is to suggest new business models for automobile manufacturers to capture the opportunities and overcome the threats due to the development of MaaS. We first analyze the current situation of the Chinese MaaS market based on three different levels: country level, industry level, and customer level. Based on all the findings, three new business model options: B2B asset provider, Mobility service provider, and Autonomous mobility experience pioneer, are proposed using the 4I framework. After examining the three proposed business models, it is essential to mention that they are not mutually exclusive but complementary and can be used by automobile manufacturers, though not all at the same time. In the short term, automobile manufacturers can modify the business model to become the B2B asset provider. Once the company's IT infrastructure is developed and ready, it can become a Mobility service provider by offering digital car rental services. In the long-term, autonomous mobility experience pioneers may help to address the issue of declining demand for human-driving vehicles.JEL Codes: M10, M13