A Literature Review of Design Decision Making in Disruptive Technological Innovations of New Products

This paper reviews the information available on specifics of the design decision-making process for the case of disruptive technological innovations associated with new products and systems. It defines the term “disruptive technological innovation,” provides with the explanation of decision-making methodology peculiarities for this type of innovation, and describes currently existing techniques and tools to support design decision making in case of disruptive technological innovations. The current paper relates to decision making in systems engineering and design, and therefore deals with the design decision making. The terms “disruptive technologies” and “disruptive innovations” appeared at the end of the 1990s. Researchers frequently mention disruptive innovations and technologies in the description of technical products for different industries: aircraft, automotive, food, petroleum, etc. A disruptive technological innovation is defined as a combination of disruptive technology and disruptive innovation. A new product can be relatively a simple device like an unmanned aerial vehicle and a smartphone, or a complex system like a modern aerospace vehicle or a space information network. Being an innovative developed product, it possesses peculiarities influencing the product development phase of the product lifecycle design decision-making process and accompanying supporting techniques and tools. This review investigates the specifics of design decision making of disruptive technologically innovative products that influence different stages of the product development phase in their product lifecycles. The paper combines aspects of systems engineering with innovation theory, key elements of the design of complex systems, and highlights the product development phase of the product lifecycle design decision-making process.