III. ACQUIRE AND FORGET: THE CONFLICT OF INFORMATION
3.4 Results
3.4.3 Gamma Medical – Organizational Memory
Gamma Medical has developed products utilized in the treatment of neurological and cardiovascular disorders. For instance, they have developed an implantable device that monitors internal characteristics of a patient which warns the patient if abnormal conditions arise. The development of these devices has provided Gamma a body of knowledge related to the NPD process of medical devices. Gamma Medical has been able to utilize their OM in a productive manner while avoiding a potential trap of being tied to the past.
For Gamma Medical, their history of successful innovations and OM processes have resulted in the codification of certain memories into a set of “rules” used during the NPD process that they consider predictors of the success of the new product. They have
divided their memories into those that are procedural and descriptive of success factors and those that are innovation specific. The division of these memories is significant to the success of the firm.
Gamma’s guidelines address factors such as how easy the device is to use, the efficacy of the device, and ability to have the device paid for by insurance. These guidelines are used in a more strategic capacity than individual product development decisions. Consider the development of their implantable device, Gamma must conform to the state of surgical practice for implantation, and that practice has changed with time.
In contrast to Gamma’s guidelines, a competitive firm developed a method of bypass surgery without the use of a thoracotomy (surgical incision in the chest wall). The procedure was performed through multiple small incisions in the chest, reduced the risk to the patient, and significantly reduced the recovery time. Despite the procedure’s benefits, the technique required physicians to perform over twenty procedures to learn the method and ten procedures per year to remain current. The investment in time and
learning was more than physicians were willing to commit. In contrast, as an alternative treatment to bypass surgery, the procedure used for placing a stent inside a clogged artery was the same as that used for angioplasty, so physicians were able to utilize their previous skills for the new procedure. History has shown that the stent, developed by following Gamma’s guidelines, has been a successful innovation.
It appears that Gamma’s OM processes contradict proposition 2; however, Gamma splits their memories into those converted into their success guidelines and the technical aspects required of the NPD process. Gamma attributes their success in the NPD of radical innovations to their ability to jump into new areas and applications and
obtain the information necessary to solve the current problem. Gamma has reported that they may know nothing of a new area and must learn the information critical to the problem to be solved.
For Gamma Medical, their OM processes have benefited the firm through their guidelines, but their development of radical innovations has resulted from their short- term memory and information acquisition of information relevant to their new projects.
Gamma’s lack of existing knowledge in new projects and approach to acquiring information for their new projects support proposition two.
3.4.4 Delta – The Conflict of Information Acquisition and Organizational Memory:
In the medical device market there are many groups of people that may “use” a single product. Unlike the consumer electronics market, where a single person would use an MP3 player, users of medical devices may include physicians, nurses, technicians, and patients. Consider the pacemaker, it is installed by a cardiac surgeon, but subsequent to the implantation, the patient and the cardiologist must interface with the device. Because IA and OM are critical components of learning, this creates a potential problem for firms wanting to include customer input in the development of their radical innovations.
Because the quality of the information may vary, not only does the age of memories need to be considered, but also where the information originated and from whom new
information will be acquired.
Bearing this in mind, Delta, a manufacturer of devices transferring
pharmaceuticals to the patient from the surface their bodies, acquires information from physicians prescribing their devices and the patients who use them. For radical
innovations, Delta seeks to acquire information from both of these groups. The importance of seeking both groups is seen by the following anecdote:
“A physician may tell a patient to use a particular device if efficacious even if it is hard to use or poorly designed. By focusing on the
physician and not on the user, some user needs go unmet…the medical needs may be met, but the ancillary needs of the patient are missed.
Thus, the subtle things that make a product better are missing. This also becomes a problem if the patient input is obtained too far downstream in the NPD process.”
Highlighting the problem of OM and IA, Delta manufactures a device the size of a dime, but they have the technology, i.e. a radical innovation, to make devices that are half of that size. Their OM has fixed on the concept that smaller is better in this market, so they believed that they should continue to develop innovations allowing for smaller devices. Despite this drive to make smaller devices, information acquired from the market revealed that the products could become too small for customers to manage, manipulate, and implement. In this situation, OM led to setting one direction for the product development, while the IA indicated a different direction. The experience of Delta demonstrates the conflict of IA and OM in support of both hypotheses one and two.