Living Lab

The discrete production and therefore the product development is signed of continous shorter product life cycles. The timespan, on which a product can be profitable placed on the market is cut in half over the last 20 years. As a result, the companies are forced to create new products continously to stay alive long-dated. The key for the survival of a companie is the successful product development. But only one of 4 new developed products have an economic success. To set the focus on the market and customer needs is one of the most important factor for a successful product deveopment, what numerous investigations proved (Cooper 1980). However, in operational practice still many does not follow this demand and therefore a lot of products on the market aren't accepted by the customer. A long-term binding to the customer is also not given.

Setting the user in the centric of the product development is an auspicious approach of the Living Labs model. At the MIT the Living Labs paradigma was developed to allow a better involvement of the customer in the design process of accommodation units. Subjects, which live in a real environment, are observed how they deal with new technologies. The results of the observations give information about how the accomodation units should be built to afford the users with the best enivornment. The approach of Living Labs is currently adapted to the telecommunication industry. Numerous initiatives and companies (e.g. Nokia, Ericsson, Vodafone, etc.) uses the idea of Living Labs in their development activities in cooperation with the submitter. The goal of this main study is to adapt the idea of Living Labs on discrete and long-term production and to create a basis for the "Living Labs Vorarlberg", and therefore to support the region Vorarlberg lastingly.