Towards Concurrent Processes Technology Transfer

Abstract

Technology transfer has been largely undertaken as an isolated, an individual, a geographically local, and a sequential process. The global interest in technology transfer has led to substantial practitioner experience and the emergence of alternative structures to support the process. Currently it is hard to exploit the available diverse and dispersed knowledge base in support of realizing good practice in specific technology transfer applications. In this paper a ‘Technology Transfer Operations Envelope’ is presented. Good practice for selected zones of the envelope is described in regional, large company, and small and medium-sized enterprise domains. Critical success factors in these domains are identified. By recognizing the characteristics of the technology transfer environment and relating these to good practice in these domains, the scope for success is increased. Concurrent engineering strategies can be applied to technology transfer. The Technology Transfer Operations Envelope is a step in this direction. Concurrent technology transfer will become increasingly important as the competitive opportunities available from good technology transfer are better recognized, the time to break even in technology transfer decreases, and the tacit knowledge element in the technology transferred increases.