Organizing the Innovation System for Reusability : The Case of Made-to-Order Markets

This paper examines the transfer of designs between projects within firm in the context of made-to-order producing companies. This practice is also known as knowledge reuse. Past studies has provided a detailed account of the strategies and processes involved in the reuse of technologies. Nonetheless, a large portion of this research was based on evidence collected in mass-producing companies. This paper attempts to develop a complementary framework to identify the strategies involved in reusing technologies in the made-to-order context. Data were drawn from three aerospace companies based in Israel. Two strategies emerged from the empirical evidence: exploit product success and design for reuse