Managing the new-technology cycle from R&D to product introduction: a framework and overall technology strategy

Concern is shown that the multiple dimensions of new-technology product development are not managed in a coordinated manner across the entire product development cycle. lhe complexity of doing this is likened to managing the wave patterns of an ocean. A phase model framework is presented that shows five phases of technology and high-tech product development activities, the interrelationships among these activities, and the need to integrate and coordinate these activities. An overall technology management strategy for the entire cycle is presented that consists of a set of seventeen component strategies, in five groups. lhis overall technology management strategy is believed to help integrate the technology and high-tech product a!evelopment cycle activities and to provide focus for competing on the basis of technology. The ability to create new technology is provided by a particular skill and knowledge set represented by such activities as scientific research and engineering design. The ability to compete using that new technology requires added skills and knowledge, much of which is represented by technology management expertise. In many industries in which U.S. technology and products were previously dominant, U.S. companies have lost this dominance. This is widely believed not to be a failure of American science and research, but instead to be a failure of U.S. companies to commercialize technologies that have originated in the U.S. For example, Sweeney, el al., [21] tells us that “the problem in the loss of American preeminence has not been a lack of U.S. inventiveness or innovation, but rather the failure to use our resources effectively to transform innovations into commercial products” @. 4). A significant element of this failure to convert U.S.-invented technologies into products is perceived by many as inadequate management of technology within U.S. companies. This inadequacy was empirically evaluated by Monger [9], who conducted a survey of 1500 chief executive officers (CEOs). He found (see Exhibit 1) that by a good margin, the most important reason (per these CEOs) that U.S. companies have lost competitive advantage in the international marketplace is that YE~ec~ti~es have not properly managed technology; o 32 96 evaluated this as the most important reason, and 73 96 as among the top three reasons.