Technology Selection Process Research Articles

Decision Support in the Process of Choosing a Residential Building Technology

The choice of construction technology depends on many factors, which are now increasingly determined by the developing concept of sustainability. Decisions made at the stage of building planning and design should take into account not only the technical but also environmental, social and economic efficiency of the building throughout its life cycle. The aim of the article is the development of the methodology of supporting the technology selection process on the basis of research results, experience and opinions of building users. The DSS (decision support system) developed based on this concept may facilitate potential investors selection of technologies and support designers and constructors to improve their solutions.

Priority Addressment Protocol: Understanding the Ability and Potential of Sanitation Systems to Address Priorities.

Sanitation acceptance is unlikely if user priorities are not addressed. However, sanitation systems are commonly implemented, especially in resource-limited communities, without incorporating local context. Understanding sanitation systems' abilities to address different priorities will further inform technology selection processes. Therefore, a protocol was created to identify priorities and measure how well sanitation systems address them, based upon their importance to a community. This protocol was applied to 20 community-based sanitation systems in India. Overall, 52 sanitation and 40 community priorities were identified; most, along with their relative importance, were case-specific and not yet identified in literature. Existing sanitation systems poorly addressed priorities. Nonfunctional systems addressed the fewest, but, if use and maintenance were improved, they had the potential to address priorities almost as well as functional systems. Resource recovery systems addressed the most priorities, but there was usually minimal benefit to adding all three resources to an existing system; biogas and water had greater potential to address more priorities than compost. This priority addressment protocol can help identify the most appropriate technologies and strategies to improve technology development and success.

A stochastic fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model for optimal selection of clean technologies

Abstract Selection of clean technology options requires systematic evaluation based on multiple criteria which are often conflicting. The optimal choice should consider not just technical performance but also the economic, environmental and social aspects of technologies. Furthermore, the interdependencies of these aspects should also be considered. The decision-maker often needs to make explicit trade-offs while ranking the alternatives. In addition, data gaps and imprecise information that are typical when dealing with emerging technologies make conventional methods ineffective. This work thus proposes a Stochastic Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Network Process decision model to address the complexity and uncertainty involved in the clean technology selection process. This method first decomposes the problem into a hierarchical network structure, and then derives the probability distribution of the priority weights needed for ranking. The capabilities of the methodology are demonstrated with three case studies, involving the comparison of different carbon nanotube synthesis methods, nutrient removal treatment technology options for municipal wastewater, and low-carbon electricity sources in the Philippines.

Influences on selection of assistive technology for young children in South Africa: perspectives from rehabilitation professionals

: Selection of assistive technology for young children is a complex process. Within a context with limited resources, such as South Africa, research is needed to determine the factors influencing the assistive technology selection process, as these could ultimately either facilitate or hinder the availability and accessibility of affordable, adaptable, acceptable, and high quality assistive technology for this age group.Method: Two asynchronous online focus groups were conducted with 16 rehabilitation professionals to identify the factors they perceived to influence the selection and provision of assistive technology to young children within the South African context.Data analysis: A process of deductive thematic analysis was followed by inductive analysis of the data. Components of the Assistive Technology Device Selection Framework were used as themes to guide the deductive analysis, followed by inductive analysis to create subthemes.Discussion: The important role of the professional was highlighted in negotiating all the factors to consider in the assistive technology selection and provision process. Adaptation of the Assistive Technology Device Selection Framework is suggested in order to facilitate application to low resourced contexts, such as South Africa.Implications for rehabilitationAssistive technology selection is a complex process with factors pertaining to the users (child and family) of the assistive technology, as well as the rehabilitation professional recommending the assistive technology influencing the process.Although it may be an important factor, the availability of financial resources to purchase assistive technology is not the only determining factor in providing appropriate assistive technology to young children in contexts with limited resources.Formalized support, such as reflective supervision or mentorship programs should be facilitated and utilized by recommending professionals.Home and school visits during assessment ensure a good match between assistive technology and users within the particular context.Facilitating the availability of assistive technology for trial during assessment and/or for a period afterwards will increase the likelihood that appropriate recommendations for assistive technology are made.

A model for selecting appropriate technology for incubator-university collaboration by considering the technology transfer mechanism

A technology incubator provides an important support for a technology transfer mechanism. A technology incubator bridges the incubatees to the technology provider. In our research, we propose a technology selection model for the incubatees. Incubator managers, as decision-makers, attempt to evaluate new technology for the incubatees by comparing its profit with that of the old or established technology. The technology is proposed by a technology provider, which in this case is a university. In the technology selection activity, the distance between the technology level of incubatees and transferred technology should be considered. Unfortunately, there has been no effort to formulate a technology selection model in the technology incubator that considers the technology distance and is linked to the incubatees’ profit as financial performance. We examine the impact of the technological-level and technology assimilation rate in the technology selection process in the technology incubator. We analyse the external factor of customer acceptance of new technology with a probabilistic value and technology obsolescence. Furthermore, we introduce a profit-sharing scheme to share the profit of the incubatees with the university as a technology provider. Utilising a profit-sharing scheme means sharing the risk between incubatees and the university.

Blockchain futures: With or without Bitcoin?

AbstractBlockchain technology is considered, in some quarters, to have outgrown its primary association with the Bitcoin payments ecosystem. This belief has fostered numerous predictions of blockchain futures, in which the Bitcoin ecosystem is largely absent. It is nevertheless wholly possible to imagine a future for blockchain in which Bitcoin plays a presiding role. In drawing attention to subtexts of this kind, expectations of the future can prove highly persuasive within the context of technology selection and adoption processes of the present, lending an invisible hand to the design of business models, while also guiding strategic choices and the purchasing decisions made by managers.

The Technology Evaluation and Selection Process for ATSC 3.0 Next Generation Audio

The transition from NTSC analog television to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 1.0 digital television (DTV) standard, with its AC-3 audio technology, brought a significant increase in capabilities and enjoyment to television, bringing wide-range cinema-like 5.1 surround sound to the audience. Roughly two decades later, ATSC 3.0 audio is poised to leverage these benefits and add groundbreaking enhancements that include greater efficiency, personalization and immersive surround sound for the listening audience.

QoS-Aware Video Transmission Over Hybrid Wireless Network for Connected Vehicles

Communication between vehicles enables a wide array of applications and services ranging from road safety to traffic management and infotainment. Each application places distinct quality of service (QoS) constraints on the exchange of information. The required performance of the supported services differs considerably in terms of bandwidth, latency, and communication reliability. For example, high-bandwidth applications, such as video streaming, require highly reliable communication. However, the attenuation of the IEEE 802.11p/DSRC communication link, due to static and mobile obstructing objects, degrades the link quality and can compromise the QoS requirements of the supported applications. On the other hand, a dual-interface hybrid architecture may have a failover or backup mechanism and benefit from more reliable alternatives, such as cellular networks for occasionally offloading data transmission by radio access technology (RAT) selection and vertical handover process. Since 4G/Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is generally not free, it is, therefore, highly desirable to minimize the time during which the cellular interface is used and to return to the IEEE 802.11p/DSRC interface. This paper proposes a hybrid communication approach based on 4G/LTE and the IEEE 802.11p technologies to support a V2X video streaming application. The proposed approach includes details on the underlying communication architecture, a procedure for selecting the best RAT, a real test platform complemented by a standard software protocol stack, and finally an extensive performance evaluation of the proposed solution based on field test measurements. The results indicate that the proposed approach significantly improves the overall reliability of communication with respect to packet and frame delivery metrics.

Sustainable technology selection decision-making model for enterprise in supply chain: Based on a modified strategic balanced scorecard

During technology adoption, assessment of its sustainable character is a difficult task due to limited insight and the various dimensions of sustainability, as well as its complicated application at the operational level. A proper decision-making framework and method may be conducive to bridging generic and macro-level sustainability with local-site and task-oriented technology selection, improving the application of sustainable technology. For this reason, a framework is explored to highlight the sustainable nature of relevant components during an operational decision-making process within the supply chain. With an eye to the triple bottom of sustainability, the product chain, value-added activities of supply chain and stakeholders are analyzed and embedded into the technology selection method. The dynamic relationships among these components (product chain, value-added activities and stakeholders) as carriers of technology are also discussed so as to investigate their sustainable features. Furthermore, to figure out the whole technology decision-making logic map, a modified strategic balanced scorecard is established and applied to evaluate technology candidates in terms of their features of sustainability. Next, a computing method is designed to produce a sustainable technology choice. The multilateral mechanisms among the three groups, as well as within each group, during the technology selection process are identified and elaborated completely. The framework of analysis and method presented in the paper add insight to sustainability theoretically, and guide its application in technology adoption. Managerial implications, as well as limitations of this work, are concluded at the end of this paper.

A holistic framework for evaluation and selection of remanufacturing operations: an approach

Lack of efficient evaluation methods to help decision makers in making informed decision regarding in-house technology investments, outsourcing technology, and manual activities in the remanufacturing industry has raised serious concerns in the selection process of technologies based on company size and resources. This has resulted in the inability of decision makers to broadly assess the scope of alternative technologies against remanufacturing processes. Thus, it has resulted in the choice of a common solution based on inconsistencies and uncertainties. This paper proposes a holistic framework that can assist decision makers in evaluating the remanufacturing operations by offering better understanding of the performance and potential capabilities in the selection of appropriate technology. The salient feature of the proposed framework is its utilization of the fuzzy logic method as guiding tool to analyze criteria for technology selection in order to make informed decisions on whether to invest or outsource a technology or use labor-intensive operations to the specific process. The paper also highlights importance of the technology assessment framework in aligning and consolidating the dedicated thinking for the life cycle of the particular technology. The major contribution of the framework is its integration of obsolete and disposal phases with the acquisition and adoption phases. Therefore, during technology assessment, decision makers are guided by a step-by-step iterative process on technology requirement verification.

Technology Evaluation and Selection of 3DIC Integration Using a Three-Stage Fuzzy MCDM

For the purpose of the sustainable development in the global semiconductor industry, emerging three-dimensional integrated circuit (3DIC) integration technologies have demonstrated their importance as potential candidates for extending the lifespan of Moore’s Law. This study aimed to explore a technology selection process involving a three-stage fuzzy multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach to facilitate the effective assessment of emerging 3DIC integration technologies. The fuzzy Delphi method was first used to determine the important criteria. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (fuzzy AHP) was then adopted to derive the weights of the criteria. The fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (fuzzy TOPSIS) was finally deployed to rate the alternatives. Empirical results indicate that market potential, time-to-market, and heterogeneous integration are the top three decision criteria for the selection of 3DIC integration technologies. Furthermore, 2.5D through-silicon interposer (TSI) is of primary interest to the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, followed by 3DIC through-silicon via (TSV), 3D packaging, and 3D silicon TSV (Si TSV). The proposed three-stage fuzzy decision model may potentially assist industry practitioners and government policy-makers in directing research and development investments and allocating resources more strategically.

Life cycle-based decision support tool for selection of wastewater treatment alternatives

We report the development and application of a user-friendly, scenario-based decision support tool (TechSelect 1.0). The objective of the study focuses on implementation of the ‘scenario-based’ multiple attributes decision-making (MADM) approach recently proposed by Kalbar et al. (2012a). The tool incorporates multiple scenarios to deal with complex decision-making situations typically encountered in urban, suburban and rural areas. The scenario-based decision-making implemented through the tool reduces complexity in the selection of the appropriate wastewater treatment technology. It also uses a life cycle sustainability assessment framework for assessing technologies from environmental (life cycle assessment), economic (life cycle costing) and social (various sustainability indicators) perspectives. In addition, a user-friendly computational platform has been provided for the convenience of end users and stakeholders. The tool has been tested and validated on two real-life case studies pertaining to the problem of decision-making under complex situations. The results clearly explain the technology selection process and justify the simplicity of the tool in both the case studies. The proposed tool will broaden the application of scenario-based decision-making approaches in wastewater management.

La evaluación de nuevas tecnologías en salud en hospitales: revisión narrativa

The rapid evolution of technology and subsequent growth of diagnostic and therapeutic methods has brought about a growing interest in health professionals for having the latest and best technologies to serve patients as these resources are expected to reduce clinical uncertainty regarding diagnosis and treatment. Technological advances are acknowledged in part as being responsible for the improvement in the health of communities and the increase in life expectancy of the population. However, the large number of emerging innovations suggests that health systems must implement an appropriate selection process to ensure that the benefits and objectives are in fact achieved. The selection process of new technologies should include both the analysis of the technology itself as well as how it compares to others. This process is known as health technology assessment. These evaluations focus on the macro level, mainly from national assessment agencies, which evaluate with the aim of regulating the implementation of technologies in the Colombian health systems, which is a benefit plan. However, new technologies are only available in health institutions, which involves an assessment that regulates technologies at that level and is internationally known as hospital-based health technology assessment. This document provides a description of technology assessment with an emphasis on hospital methodologies.

High Speed Rail Learning System (HSRLS) – Taking Advantage of Online Technologies in Railway Education

ABSTRACT The United States has taken initial steps toward developing a high speed rail (HSR) network, but the domestic workforce experience and institutional knowledge necessary for the planning, design, construction, and operations of HSR is underdeveloped. This paper describes and provides preliminary assessment of the High Speed Rail Learning System (HSRLS), a demonstration project that seeks to address gaps in HSR knowledge and skills in the US. The HSRLS developers designed an online education system to serve as a clearinghouse for rail-related information and content, connect teachers, trainers, and students at pre-, and postgraduate levels, and to collect demographic and professional information on groups and individuals interested in HSR. The paper explores the technology review, selection process, and content developed. Website visits and demographic information from over 4,000 unique individuals and 600 HSRLS course registrations are analyzed and assessed.

An investment evaluation of supply chain RFID technologies: A group decision-making model with multiple information sources

Selection of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is important to improving supply chain competitiveness. The objective of this paper is to develop a group decision-making model using fuzzy multiple attributes analysis to evaluate the suitability of supply chain RFID technology. Since numerous attributes have been considered in evaluating the RFID technology suitability, most information available in this stage exhibits imprecise, subjective and vague. Fuzzy set theory appears as an essential tool to provide a decision framework for modeling imprecision and vagueness inherent in the RFID technology selection process. In this paper, a fuzzy multiple attributes group decision-making algorithm using the principles of fusion of fuzzy information, 2-tuple linguistic representation model, and maximum entropy ordered weighted averaging operator is developed. The proposed method is apt to manage evaluation information assessed using both linguistic and numerical scales in group decision making problem with multiple information sources. The aggregation process is based on the unification of fuzzy information by means of fuzzy sets on a basic linguistic term set. Then, the unified information is transformed into linguistic 2-tuple in a way to rectify the problem of loss information of other fuzzy linguistic approaches. The proposed method can facilitate the complex RFID technology selection process and consolidate efforts to enhance group decision-making process. Additionally, this study presents an example using a case study to illustrate the availability of the proposed method and its advantages.

A Three-Stage Filter for Effective Technology Selection

OVERVIEW:Selecting the right technology for a given application is critical to the future of any enterprise. Companies invest billions of dollars each year in new technologies intended to provide competitive advantage. While there have been many attempts to rationalize the technology selection process, most are not sufficiently focused on the technology itself and many processes simply add a layer of complexity to an already difficult process. We have developed a three-stage technology selection tool that provides a framework and a simple risk-managed process for evaluating and selecting new technologies. The tool provides a powerful visual aid to help clarify key attributes of various technologies and the decisions related to their adoption, illustrating for both team members and senior management the decision-making processes engaged by technologists and project managers in considering new technologies. The three-stage filter was tested during a new product development project for a leading multinational company seeking smart material technologies to drive strategic innovation.

A planning model at a broad level incorporating the effect of technology selection decisions

The current and rapid technological progress has had a dramatic impact on the operations of firms which are now becoming increasingly technology driven. Consequently, it has now become necessary to capture and incorporate this impact into operational planning models of economic and industrial activity. This paper addresses this felt need and builds a new model to capture the effect of technology on the operational aspects of economic and industrial units, in specific terms, and build it into planning models. This is effected through a technology variable, introduced into the production function, which is a quantitative measure of the technology level employed in the unit, and which directly impacts the productivities of the resources used by the unit. The concavity properties of the function are examined, as also its implications on the planning strategies of the unit or firm, with direct implications in the strategic planning and technology selection processes.

Variation of purchasing's involvement: case studies of supplier collaborations in new product development

Firms are increasingly involving suppliers in new product development (NPD) and one reason for this is to access technological knowledge. Previous research argues that purchasing fulfils an important role in involving the suppliers in NPD. However, purchasing's role under technological uncertainty has not been investigated in detail. The purpose of this paper is to explore purchasing's role in technology selection, supplier selection and level of participation in NPD projects involving suppliers. Three NPD projects at one large high-tech firm are studied. The results show that purchasing has limited influence in the technology selection process, but fulfils an important role in the selection of the supplier and has a role as a trouble-shooter throughout the collaborative NPD projects. Purchasing does not necessarily need to be involved in solving daily, routine problems, but serves as a trouble-shooter to solve problems related to the supplier's strategy, the relationship with the supplier, and commitment issues.

The selection of technology for late-starters: A case study of the energy-smart photovoltaic industry

Technology selection, which influences the competitive advantages of an enterprise or a country, is a multi-criteria decision issue. In addition, it is increasingly difficult to identify the right technologies because technologies are increasing in number and complexity. This study proposes a technology selection process integrating the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Delphi method. The former effectively conducts the fuzziness existing in experts' responses and identifies the strength of technology selection criteria and the relationship between the two. The latter provides the main technology alternatives for Taiwan's future photovoltaic industry. Finally, through the two-way linkage between technology selection criteria and main industrial technologies, the technology fields of the photovoltaic industry can be identified. The empirical results indicate that the benefit of a technology is the most important factor among technological selection criteria, and that Taiwan should adopt and develop microcrystalline silicon film multi-junction and amorphous-silicon solar cells as its main industrial technologies. The results may serve to guide industrial technology acquisition and the work of resource allocations on the behalf of government and enterprises.

Comparison of by-product and heat-recovery cokemaking technologies

This paper describes comparison of the heat-recovery and by-product cokemaking technologies. Different conditions of the plant, such as availability and cost of energy sources, site area, plant configuration can play a key role in cokemaking technology selection process. Two studies for cokemaking technology selection using methodology developed by Hatch has been shown with different technology chosen in each case due to influence of the different key factors.