Strengthening Risk Evaluation In Existing Risk Diagnosis Method

An existing risk diagnosing methodology (RDM) diagnoses corporate risk for product-innovation projects. However, it cannot evaluate and compare the risk levels of multiple alternatives in the product development stage. This paper proposes a modified risk diagnosis method to fill the gap of risk evaluation in selections of innovative product alternatives and the application of the method will be also illustrated by a case problem on alternative selections in electrical dimmer designs. With RDM as the foundation, a modified RDM (MRDM) is proposed to deal with the problem of selecting innovative project alternatives during the early stages of product development. The Bayesian network; a probabilistic graphical model, is adopted to support the risk pre-assessment stage in the MRDM. The MRDM is proposed by incorporating the risk pre-assessment stage into the foundation. By evaluating the engineering design risks in two electrical dimmer switches, an application of the MRDM in product innovation development is successfully exemplified. This paper strengthens the existing methodology for RDM in innovative product development projects to accommodate innovative alternatives. It is advantageous for companies to identify and measure the risks associated in product development so as to plan for appropriate risk mitigation strategies.