New Business Concepts in Industrial Machines Tools

Last Wednesday, 4th of July, 2007, it was organized a second training workshop “New Business Cocepts in Industrial Machines Tools” in Budapest.

There were 19 attendants, from 10 different organizations and 5 European countries.

The programme of the workshop was developed in two main sessions, the former during the morning and the latter during the afternoon, according the following agenda:


MORNING SESSION

• Introduction: current situation of the Machine Tool Industry and needs for business model innovation
• New Business Concepts outside Machine Tool Industry: an industrial case
• Intentions of New Business Concepts adoption in Machine Tool Industry: evidence from Next Machine Builders partners

AFTERNOON SESSION

• New Business Concepts in Machine Tool Industry: typologies and actual diffusion
• Instruments for New Business Concepts design and implementation
• Open discussion

The workshop was chaired by Derek Palethorpe (Cecimo). He introduced the topics to be described during the day and presented the concept of “Business Model” starting from an available definition given by the literature and describing all the actors involved in it. This brief introduction was useful to clarify the concept underlying all the presentations presented in the workshop.

After this first introduction, Helene Hotellier (Cecimo) presented the current situation of the European machine tool industry, supported by some economical data and trends. Despite the positive trend and expectations for the future characterizing the sector, the available data revealed a worrying gap existing between the European orders of machine tools in comparison with the rest of the world, especially the emerging Countries like China. This gap makes necessary the renewal of the current business models adopted in machine tool industry and the development of new ones able to compensate the loss in the sales of new machines and to differentiate the offer to the customers including an increase number of added value services. This economical introduction was appreciated and useful to sensitize the attention towards the real need of new business models for the European manufacturing sector.

Ferruccio Longo (Plastal) presented the development of an innovative business model adopted by his company outside the machine tool industry. His presentation was well appreciated and roused the participants’ interest because the described scenario was considered as a quite significant example of new business model. The found problems, difficulties and benefits were further deepened on participants’ request in order to better understand the effective configuration of the scenario and the potentiality of its application in machine tool industry.

The morning session was concluded by the presentation of Itziar Ricondo (Danobat). She presented the composition and the activities of the Danobat group and described the new business models already applied by some companies belonging to it in manufacturing sector. The implementation of these business models was due to the need to solve some market needs and problems through the offering of different solutions involving different actors within the supply chain. The main differences between the traditional business models and the new ones implemented by the company have been also presented as well as the main difficulties and expected benefits.


The afternoon session started with the presentation of Marcus Schroeter and Sabine Biege (Fraunhofer ISI). Supported by the results of the European Manufacturing Survey (EMS), they presented the current diffusion of new business models in European machine tool industry and the main reasons underlying it. The four types of already implemented new business models have been also described on the base of the requirement analysis preformed during the first year of Next project. At the end, the main requirements needed for a successful and wider implementation of new business models have been outlined.

Starting from these requirements, Giacomo Copani (ITIA-CNR) described the complexity of the decision process at the base of the adoption of a new business model. He presented the three steps process developed in Next project in order to reduce such complexity; this process leads to the effective implementation of a new business model starting from multiple possible solutions. The main tools and methodologies supporting each phase of the process were also described at a general level presenting the main outputs of each of them. One comment coming from a participant was addressed to the need for the managers within companies to have clear the logics and criteria underlying the results obtained with each tool since such results should be the starting point for their decisions and are considered critical to be managed.

All the presentation during the workshop were well appreciated and received by the attendants that agreed on the effectiveness of such an event to spread the new business models concepts and sensitise the industrial world about the need of their implementation. A possible occasion to do this will be the EMO in September where an event to present the Next project will be organized. One comment coming from a participant was the need to carefully evaluate the real applicability of new business models in industry because of the multiple variables of the external environment (e.g. taxation, etc.) that can interfere with their effective implementation in some Countries.