User Friendly Framework for Measuring Product and Process Novelty in the Early Stages of Product Development

This paper examines the innovation process in four Norwegian companies, all supplying the automotive industry with light weight structural components. Twelve representative product projects are categorized, together with people from product development in respective companies, according to product and process novelty. The main contribution from this study is twofold; first, a new framework and index for categorizing innovation across product and process newness is developed, second, putting empirical data into the framework demonstrates that product and process uniqueness does not seem to be dependent on amount of resources.