The Life Cycle of a Complex Product System

This paper examines the evolution of the cellular mobile communications system which is treated as an example of a Complex Product System (CoPS). It distinguishes between architectural, component and systemic innovations in order to isolate different phases of innovation in the birth, growth and transformation of the cellular systems and other CoPS. An architectural phase in the birth and early development of a CoPS is powerfully influenced by regulators, system suppliers, standard-making bodies and large users. In this phase, emphasis is placed on developing and testing new system architectures prior to commercialisation. In a new product generation phase, the rate of component and systemic innovation increases and successive new product generations are introduced without fundamentally changing the established architectural design. Industries supplying CoPS are often relatively stable because suppliers have developed core capabilities to accommodate the periodic introduction of new product generations.