The article considers knowledge management issues from the client's perspective. In the example presented, a sludge treatment centre procured by Northumbrian Water Ltd (NWL), the task faced by the client was to manage knowledge in a context where the core technology being procured was new and resulted in the need for new knowledge to be created and shared both pre- and post-delivery. In exploring these issues, the article reveals the problems of (and some solutions to) managing knowledge across the project life-cycle and between different groups, where the motivation for generating and sharing knowledge was not the same for all participants.
The new economy is driving federal research laboratories to implement new ways for the management of their Research & Development (R&D) activities. This situation is very similar to that documented by many other organizations involved in R&D activities, where researchers are being asked to be relevant, to be more application-oriented, and to consider themselves key partners in the strategic management of the business. In addition, R&D is being asked to meet the same challenges as the rest of the organization, namely: 1) to reduce time to market; 2) reduce cost; 3) improve quality; 4) increase reliability; and 5) increase focus on customer needs. Concurrent Engineering (CE), and Collaborative Engineering (or Collaborative Product Development-CPD) have emerged as new paradigms with significant impact in the development of new products and processes. With documented and substantiated success in the automotive and technology industries CE and, most recently, CPD are being touted as innovative management philosophies for many other business sectors including Research and Development. This paper introduces two independent research initiatives conducted at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio investigating the application of CE and CPD in an R&D environment. Since little research has been conducted in the use of CE and CPD in sectors other than the high mass production manufacturing, the objective of these independent studies is to provide a systematic evaluation of the applicability of these paradigms (concurrent and collaborative) in a low/no production, service environment, in particular R&D.
Biotechnology set two major changes in the pharmaceutical sector: (i) it changed the research process, through the introduction of new technologies; (ii) it paved the way to the new healthcare paradigm of the personalised medicines. In response to these changes, the organisational structure at each level must be modified. This task represents a major challenge particularly for big pharmas. The paper evaluates biotech-led changes on organisational structures of big pharmas. The work is based on the analysis of the organisations of the first ten pharmaceutical companies sorted by market capitalisation.
Our proposed solution is to enable partners of a construction project to share all the technical data produced and handled, during the building production process by building an information system through the use of Internet technology. The system links distributed databases and allows building partners to access remotely and manipulate specific information. This paper covers the information structure model based on building construction knowledge and the access to user-relevant information, we focus more widely on data access through the help of adaptable interfaces. These interfaces are built dynamically based on a user profile and the current stage of the building's life cycle. It consists of 3D representations of the building as well as data that is associated to each graphical entities (example: Walls, Slabs, Windows and Beams). This project is been sponsored by Nemetschek France (subsidiary company of Nemetschek A.G., AEC CAD software leader), and SNCF (French railway public company).
In Europe, the future patenting of software-related inventions has been the subject of intensive discussions for some time, since there exists a strong dispute between the supporters of the U.S. practice of allowing patents in order to increase Europe's competitiveness and the opponents postulating negative impacts of patents on the software development process. This paper presents empirical results about the idiosyncrasies of the software development process and tests hypotheses on their impact on the likelihood of patents being obstacles for software dvelopment. The paper concludes with the identification of determinants for preferences concerning different possible patent regimes in the future.
Sandia National Laboratories has learned through their process of technology transfer that not all high tech transfers are alike. They are not alike by the nature of the customers involved, the process of becoming involved with these customers and finally and most importantly the very nature of the technology itself. Here, the authors focus on technology transfer in the microsystems arena and specifically the sacrificial surface version of microsystems. They have learned and helped others learn that many MEMS applications are best realized through the use of surface micromachining (SMM). This is because SMM builds on the substantial integrated circuit industry. In this paper, the authors review Sandia's process for transferring a disruptive MEMS technology in numerous cases
Many important products and technologies were developed in federal laboratories and were driven initially by national needs and for federal applications. For example, the clean room technology that enhanced the growth of the semiconductor industry was developed at Sandia (SNL) decades ago. Laboratories advances in micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS)-an important set of process technologies vital for product miniturization-are occurring at SNL. Each of the more than 500 federal laboratories in the US, are sources of R&D that contribute to America's economic vitality, productivity growth and, technological innovation. However, only a fraction of the science and technology available at the federal laboratories is being utilized by industry. Also, federal laboratories have not been applying all the business development processes necessary to work effectively with industry in technology commercialization. This paper addresses important factors that federal laboratories, federal agencies, and industry must address to translate these under-utilized technologies into profitable products in the industrial sector
Alliances and other types of inter-firm relationships facilitate knowledge transfer and generate innovation that is fast and relatively inexpensive-factors that can often spell the difference between successful products and also-rans in the marketplace. In this paper, we argue that alliances need to be conceptualized as meta-organizations that transcend the structures and operational elements of traditional organizations. The implications of strategically managing such innovation in contexts of competition and collaboration, and measuring the results of such management are discussed
For firms competing in markets characterized by short life cycles, quick changeover of manufacturing processes from one product generation to the next is critical. Longer changeovers delay a firm's market entry. As a firms's market entry time is delayed, its opportunity to accumulate demand is diminished. The extent to which demand is lost reflects the market entry time of the firm's competitor. A model is introduced to explicitly examine the effect of uncertainty associated with a competitor's market entry time on both manufacturing and marketing strategies. The firm's objective is to maximize expected profit obtained from a series of high volume products manufactured on a single facility.
Firms interact in a “lattice-like” structure within an overall regulatory environment to develop emerging technologies in many high-technology industries. The authors propose that organizational issues at various levels of such a network organization need to be addressed for successful technology development to occur. These levels include the intra-firm level (within individual members), the inter-firm level (among members), and the institutional (overall regulatory framework) level
The planning of express road systems is basically a network design problem, and such design problems involve resource allocation and cost control from the aspect of high-level government, and an objective of minimal total traveling-time or shortest traveling-distance for lower-level users. As a result, the issue becomes a bilevel programming problem. As for medium-and long-term programming, the resources and constraints seized in hand vary in each stage, thus it is necessary that multi-stage programming be conducted; also due to the fact that the decision making level shares diversified consideration for the objectives, this issue becomes a multiobjective programming problem. This study employes multi-stage multiobjective programming to formulate the framework of a medium-and long-term development plan for express roads. An example is provided for illustration
In recent years, much attention has been given to product introduction by managers, consultants and academics. Although many companies are actively improving their new product introduction processes, many are merely applying prescriptive techniques without fully understanding their processes. Very few companies use self-assessment techniques on the product introduction process because it is believed by many that product introduction is too complex and too diverse. This paper argues that self-assessment can be applied to global product introduction (the most complex operating scenario) and a framework for applying the technique is suggested
Problems in engineering education are often addressed in relation to professional and technical engineering areas. While these problems are undoubtedly real, the factors which are important in relation to promotion of engineers to upper management may be overlooked by not only engineers, but also by engineering educators, even those educators engaged in student career advisement. Here, the authors argue that engineering educators must teach technical skills, but educators should also focus their attention on specific areas of management development which engineering students may need for career advancement. Managerial skills are often more abstract than engineering skills and may sometimes be viewed as less important by educators. This lack of exposure to critical managerial skills could account for the apparent lack of executives with engineering backgrounds. Realization of factors which enhance management performance, and subsequently results in promotion into the ranks of upper management, may provide the necessary insight for engineering educators to assist the future endeavors of engineering students in relation to management advancement.< >
Research and development organizations, more so than most organizations, resist change. The task of leading change in product development is especially difficult. The traditional view of leadership revolves around charismatic leadership. Yet, two other facets of leadership are probably better-suited to initiate change in R&D organizations: instrumental leadership (use of “instruments” like meetings, communications, planning mechanisms, etc.); and developmental leadership (focus on developing leadership skills throughout the management ranks). This paper documents an instrumental and developmental change leadership process for a medium sized manufacturer of electronic products faced with rapidly growing software content in its products
The current activities of organizations are marked with awareness of importance of quality improvement management. The end product quality assurance is not efficient enough. The quality should be introduced during the whole product development process. In this paper, the two models for software process quality improvement, the ISO 9001 (Quality Systems Model for quality assurance in design/development, production, installation, and servicing) and the SEI CMM (Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model), are introduced and compared. Based on experience with simultaneous introduction of both models in organizations, suggestions for the unification of both models are given.<>
This paper explores the problem of “the productivity paradox,” in which some industries that experienced the highest rates of capital investment during the past decade encountered low growth rates. It uses interdisciplinary concepts from the fields of deterministic chaos, information theory and cybernetics to construct a model of a production system as a dynamic, self-organizing system, in which dynamic, “far from equilibrium” dissipative systems are fundamental instruments in productivity improvement
Technological improvements in consumer products have been happening at an unprecedented pace, especially in the latter part of this century. This exponential technological progress is bound to continue for many more decades to come through the year 2000 and beyond. Many American industry giants and conglomerates have resorted to manufacturing in the far Eastern and Pacific rim countries, whereas many Japanese and European industry leaders have opened manufacturing and marketing locations in the US, to comply with the globalization trend of the business and economic environment. Companies are taking a global management approach to exploit this trend and to increase and maintain their market share. Many recent historic events like the unification of Germany, demise of the USSR and EEC-92 are examples of the changes prompting as well as justifying management approach befitting for survival in the global business environment. Any company developing and manufacturing products should be equipped to survive in this internationally competitive environment. Because high technology products become obsolete quickly, owing to the pace of the technological progress, product development and manufacturing techniques combined with long-term product planning as well as judicious product introduction schemes have to be employed, while maintaining a quality edge over competitors
