Optimizing search, monitoring and secrecy: new models and algorithms.

The goal of the research is to construct mathematical models that give guidance to innovating companies on how to deal with the new product development process. More specifically, we aim to combine theoretical insights originating from the field of strategy and innovation with the modeling and (discrete) optimization techniques from the field of operations research. Examples of issues an innovating company may encounter during the development of a new product include: (1) the tradeoff between the time-to-market, cost and quality of the new product; (2) the possibility to pursue multiple development approaches in parallel in order to cope with potential failures; (3) the planning of patent filing, cooperation, secrecy and time-to-market in order to appropriate the benefits of the innovation.status: publishe