Talk of “technology intelligence” could conjure up thoughts of business espionage, but it also describes the attempts that companies make to stay ahead of the game and to anticipate nasty surprises that could wreck an otherwise profitable enterprise. A paper in the latest issue of the journal R&D Management describes a formalised approach to technology intelligence, or TI as they call it.
In their paper, Combining methods in the technology intelligence process: application in an aerospace manufacturing firm, Husam Arman of the University of Nottingham and James Foden of Rolls-Royce Plc put forward an approach to a “practical TI methodology” that can, they believe, help companies to cope with the “increasing speed of innovation and product life cycles, growing R&D expenditures and others” as they put it.
Arman and Foden have developed what they call the Strategic Technology Alignment Roadmapping (STAR) system. STAR, they say, “provides software-supported steps for the collection of technology-related data through to the evaluation, ranking and selection of R&D projects”.
Developing STAR involved building a knowledge base of internal and external technological information. The TI process then involves a set of defined stages, including, for example, identifying and assessing competing technologies and defining the “state-of-the-art” for each technology. The process also includes benchmark a company’s position against that state-of-the-art along with scenario analysis.
One important factor, they say, is to include “market considerations” in TI. Arman and Foden believe that this is essential because “the only indication of a disruptive threat to a company may be the ‘poaching’ of its marginal customers”.
Keep it formal
One advantage of a formalised approach to TI is that it encourages systematic recording of technological information in a process that draws on a wide range of sources, such as “information that can arise from external sources, including competitors, suppliers, trade fairs, conferences, publications and patents”. Internal information can include “sources such as R&D engineers and scientists, designers, shop floor operators, intranets, databases and company’s roadmaps”.
TI uses all this information “to identify promising technologies, to show their potential and limitations, as well to take the advantage of technological changes”.
In their paper, Arman and Foden describe the various steps and workshops that a company has to complete in a TI exercise. The processes can include workshops to identify the critical technologies that are “essential to the present and future of the company in providing competitive advantage”. It is also essential to have formal internal and external technology networks of key contacts who “are knowledgeable of a particular technological area and provide comprehensive expertise through their involvement in subsequent TI stages”.
Another step in the process is to determine the cost and performance criteria that the company will use to assess the technologies that compete against the key technology that the TI is considering. It is also important to take in details of business plans and market requirements, as well as external factors such as legislative, political, social and environmental issues.
A visual approach
Using these tools, the TI process that Arman and Foden suggest can create visual representations of competing technologies. They illustrate this with an example that shows that, when it comes to costs, the established technology of plasma arc welding is inferior to competing technologies.
The paper illustrates the TI process with a case study of “a world-leading provider of power systems and services for use on land, at sea and in the air, operating in four global markets – civil aerospace, defence aerospace, marine and energy”. Arman and Foden describe a four-session process that involved two workshops.
The end result is, the authors say, better and more informed decision making on R&D. Their intention, they say, was to “enable proactive searches for information on potential technology-related developments” The TI process can then assess these developments to that the messages reach the right people “with information, appropriate ‘alarm levels’ and the associated reasoning”.
Company culture
Arman and Foden see TI as a “people tool”. As much as anything, going through the steps that go into TI is itself valuable. Participants get a better understanding of what is going on, which should allow them to make better decisions. Whether or not this happens, the authors say, depends on a company’s culture. Companies that are equipped to “technology management processes” will get more out of TI than those that lack these resources.
Arman and Foden believe that “The deployment of TI strengthened the company’s ever-developing view on the importance of tools, particularly within the early stages of technology management.” The techniques proved so successful that “TI now forms an integral part of the company’s technology management activities and has been captured as an internal ‘How-To’ document.”
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