• Name

    Piller

  • First Name

    Frank

  • Research Institution

    Frank Piller co-directs the Smart Customization Group at M.I.T. and is a Professor of Innovation Management at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.

    Frank T. Piller is a chair professor of management at the Technology & Innovation Management Group of RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He also is a co-director of the MIT Smart Customization Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Before entering his recent position in Aachen, he worked at the MIT Sloan School of Management (2004-2007) and has been an associate professor of management at TUM Business School, Munich (1999-2004).  Frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Economist, and Business Week, amongst others, Frank is regarded as one of the leading experts on mass customization, personalization, and open innovation. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Operations Management from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany in 1999. As a founding partner of Think Consult, a management consultancy, he helps his clients to serve their customers better by using truly customer-centric strategies. Frank Piller has consulted and delivered executive workshops for more than fifty companies, including many DAX30 and Fortune 500 corporations.

  • Area of expertise

    •    Development and evaluation of methods to integrate external knowledge in the innovation process (with focus on solution knowledge and innovation (idea) contests)
    •    Internal capabilities of a firm to master open innovation
    •    Strategies to master long tail markets (mass customization, postponement, co-design toolkits, co-creation)
    •    Teaching: Executive level: Customer Centric Organization; Open/User Innovation; Mass Customization (classes provided for several business schools in Europe and the US). Under-/Graduate level: Technology Management, Managing the Innovation Process; Setting up the customer centric organization

  • Students going for a doctors degree

  • Contact

    Web & Blog:
    tim.rwth-aachen.de  |  open-innovation.com  |  mass-customization.blogs.com
    Press reports about the work of Frank Piller & the RWTH-TIM group:
    http://tim.rwth-aachen.de/index.php?menu=presse

  • Relevant projects

    •    European Commission: Research Grant 7th Framework Program, Networking Activity:"Nano.Com": Commercialization of Nanotechnologies  Methods of open innovation and broadcasting of search approach for technology transfer (2010-2011)
    •    European Community / NRW Ziel.2 Program: Research Grant "OPEN-ISA- Open Platforms for Service Innovation in the Senior Market". Development of customer idea platform for senior citizens (2009-2012)
    •    Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG): Research Grant "MATRIX - New Methods for Successful Technology Transfer"  Open innovation / Transfer of broadcasting of search approach on technology transfer (2009-2011)
    •    VDMA: Research Grant "FVAcentive"  Development of open innovation platform for problem broadcasting for German Machinery Association (2008-2010)
    •    German Ministry for Research (BMBF): Project INTEGRO„Open Innovation Readiness“ Development of a measurement instrument to evaluate a firm's readiness to employ open innovation methods  (2007-2011)
    •    European Commission: 7th Framework Program, SME Project: REMPLANET: Resilient enterprise structures for mass customization. Task of research group is to set up an open innovation platform for process innovation (2009-2012)
    •    RWTH Aachen University / IMP-Program within the German Excellence Initiative: EMOTIO: Embedded Toolkits for Open Innovation. Development of a pilot to explore the idea of embedded toolkits for user innovation and co-design at the example of the automotive industry (2008-2009, extended until 2012 with grant from EU).
    •    Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG): Project Analysis Technology Transfer (PATE): Identifying success factors of technology transfer from large-scale collaborative research projects to industrial applications. (2007-2009)
    •    Stiftung Industrieforschung: User Innovation for SME: Methods to transfer of innovation from the firm's periphery (2007-2009)
    •    Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: DFG-Research Scholarship for research on User Innovation and Open Innovation (2005-2006)
    •    European Commission: 6th Framework Program, Integrated Project (IP) "CUSTOM-FIT": “A knowledge-based manufacturing system, established by integrating Rapid Manufacturing, IST and Material Science to improve the Quality of Life of European Citizens through Custom-Fit Products” Member of the Scientific Advisory Board (research on rapid manufacturing) (2004-2008)
    •    German Ministry for Research (BMBF): Project WINSERV „Toolkits for User-Driven Innovation “ (2002-2005)