S-Curve and New Product

Development

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 What is S-Curve?
The uses of S-curve at the industry level :
The description of the magnitude of improvement
The prescriptive S-Curve theory
Product performance results from:
Component technology
Architectural design
S-curve can provide convincing explanations of why alternative technologies
have made substantial inroads against currently dominant technology?

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 S-Curves

Technological innovations
typically manifest
themselves into a market
along an S-curve timeline
behavior.
The S-curve displays the
performance of a product
over time with respect to one
variable.

Stage I - characterized by relatively low performance, not

much innovation.
Stage II rapid growth due to many innovations, many
products introduced into the market.
Stage III technology tops out, product may become
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 S-Curves(contd)

The new technology, however, eventually tops out, physical

laws of the process dominate and engineers cannot extract
more performance.

The slope of the s tops out again, and the curve becomes
flatter.

This typical technological innovation time cycle, and the

market behaviour is well characterized by an s-curve.

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 S-Curves(contd)

Innovators typically conceive of an even newer technology

that can provide even better performance.

The technology is introduced for the first time into the market
has develops its own s-curve behaviour.

The newer s-curve is a disruptive technology that requires

changes in the market system for the product to succeed. The
improved performance of the technology, though, is sufficient
to force these changes.

For example, the development of florescent lamps required

new fixtures and ballast technology that incandescent bulbs
did not require.
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 s-Curves and New Product Development

The s-curve trends of an industry are important for a

competitive company to understand.

We can, for typical industries, characterize what

technology strategy a company should employ
depending on what regime of the s-curve an industry
encounters.

A technological strategy is the decision over what level

of design to attack: create new technology or improve
the current technology.

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 Comments on s-curves and technology
forecasting

s-Curves are useful to understand the typical innovation

cycle of new technology, as previously described.

Most technology follows his path of market behaviour.

There are, however, exceptions. Consider, for example,

microprocessors. The infamous Moores law states that
transistor density on microprocessors doubles every 18
months.

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 Comments on S-Curves and Technology Forecasting
Although most technologies follow this path of market behavior,
there are exceptions. Moores Law (transistor density on
microprocessors doubles every 18 months).

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 Comments on S-Curves

S-Curves show the market behavior of most

technologies
A switch to a better technology is known as jumping
the S-curve.
The newer S-curve is a disruptive technology that
requires changes in the market system to succeed
(VHS, DVD, HDTV, .)
The industry is constantly jumping the S-curve
Design team should consider the technology
environment in introducing new product.

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 The Limitation of S-Curve

From the point of view of a manger within a single firm,

could the S-curve be the prescriptive tool for new component
technology development? (at the individual firm level)
The observed maturation of a technology maybe the result, rather than
the cause, of the launch of an alternative development program.
Nobody knows what the natural, physical performance limit is in complex
engineered products.
The flattening of S-curve is a firm-specific, rather than uniform
industry, phenomenon.
Extending the conventional technology S-curve, rather than switching
S-curves?
By improving the architectural system
By applying effort to less mature element of the system

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