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Timo Achtelik
Frugal Engineering
Challenging Performance-Improving Paradigms in the Context of Automotive Material Development
Amidst diverse socio-economic and ecological market influences, Western multi-national corporations face increasing cost pressure, social responsibility, and environmental innovation constraints. Paradoxically, empirical research observes how the same incumbent companies often enhance the performance of their estab-lished sophisticated products beyond a threshold of what a majority of customers can reasonably exploit and may be willing or able to pay for.
Reflecting the concerns of a growing number of scholars, this disserta-tion challenges the efficacy of such “sustaining innovation trajectories” and their underlying “performance-improving paradigms” in effectively tackling these global challenges while maintaining competitiveness. Emerging megatrends like frugality, which intentionally scale back product features to create affordable yet high quality products for specific needs of target markets, diverge from the con-ventional innovation strategies of many technology-leading firms. Within this context, the scientific discourse has neglected to delve into the organizational root causes that give rise to overengineered and “too good” innovations in the first place. Equally significant is exploring how frugal engineering as a new innova-tion paradigm can be seamlessly integrated into ongoing development processes to provide “good enough” solutions globally.
Through a three-year action research project within the material engineer-ing department of a leading German automotive manufacturer, this dissertation identifies the organizational roots of performance-improving paradigms that have pushed many material innovations into an overengineered state and inhibited the targeted implementation of secondary materials. Building upon these insights,
