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Digital Artifacts in Industrial Co-creation: How to Use VR Technology to Bridge the Provider-Customer Boundary

31.5.2021

Industrial co-creation projects are often complex and ambiguous, involving high levels of interpretive uncertainty over processes and outcomes. To boost the effectiveness of such projects, firms have increasingly adopted virtual reality (VR) technology and have experienced unique benefits by utilizing digital artifacts—interactive objects in digital environments, such as factory installation layouts or design visualizations. This article provides case evidence demonstrating how VR-enabled digital artifacts support firms to effectively implement tailor-made solutions in robotics and automation projects. The adoption of new digital co-creation practices redefines the traditional customer-provider roles in industrial co-creation, increasing engagement, reducing uncertainty, and improving project outcomes.
Industrial co-creation is a high-stakes game that involves intensive interactions among diverse stakeholders, such as component suppliers, system integrators, and industrial customers. Typical business-to-business (B2B) projects are characterized by value-creating inputs from both the provider and the customer sides, low volumes and high idiosyncrasy, major financial investments per solution, and long design and delivery times.1 For instance, KUKA, one of the world’s leading robot and automation solution suppliers, recently acted as a system integrator in a two-year project to deliver an intelligent robot-based automation solution for Premium AEROTEC, a key supplier of Airbus. In this project, the industrial customer’s knowledge and expertise on aircraft assembly were critical for the design and successful implementation of the project, which meant that the system integrator needed to align its value-creation activities closely with the customer, not to mention the numerous sub-contractors.2 These types of projects clearly entail significant degrees of uncertainty between the various partners, given that highly specialized knowledge and inputs need to be integrated for successful project implementation. Dealing with such uncertainty is therefore critical for ensuring feasible outcomes in industrial co-creation.
Kostis, A., & Ritala, P. (2020). Digital Artifacts in Industrial Co-creation: How to Use VR Technology to Bridge the Provider-Customer Boundary. California Management Review, 62(4), 125-147.