William T. Flannery

Achieving Organizational Learning Through Team Competition

Abstract: This article contributes insights that engineering managers can use to cultivate organizational learning through competition. Contemporary firms face the challenge of successfully translating quality improvements into sustainable competitive advantages. Organizational learning is crucial to making quality improvements sustainable. This case study examined the mechanisms used to achieve organizational learning in a large-scale quality improvement competition. Thirty-four project teams from an international electronics company were included in this study. The results show that benchmarking and retrieval of electronic information were the most common methods used to acquire learning inputs. Knowledge transfer was most frequently achieved through training and adoption of internal specifications. Finally, learning was most frequently applied through formal changes to manufacturing methods and project management procedures.

Understanding the environs that impact technology transfer and transition

Since the mythical time of King Arthur, technology transfer has interested governments. Arthurian history revels in the exploits of the knights as they search for the Holy Grail. Always, it seems, finding it must mean the end to poverty, hunger, illness-all the sufferings of the kingdom. In early renditions of the legend, the Grail was a set of magical talismans to be stolen from the Celtic otherworld. With the coming of Christianity, the Grail evolved into a eucharistic vessel.This paper focuses on the differences between technology transfer and technology transition while simultaneously emphasizing the impact of laboratory mission on the perceived importance of each task. The conceptual model presented highlights the difficulties inherent in changing the culture at federal laboratories.

Interest in technology transfer across academic disciplines: Publication trends, 1981 Thru 1989

Interest in technology transfer across academic disciplines highlights this paper. We reviewed an abstracting service via computer for the years 1981 thru 1989, concentrating on publication titles that included any of four key terms: diffusion of innovation; intrapreneurshipl internal corporate venturing; and technology transfer. This computerized search located 828 pages in science and engineering and 1765 pages in the social sciences. In science and engineering, about 44% of the pages relate to specific cases of technology transfer, and about 27% have an international focus. The opposite is true in the social sciences: cases comprise about 25% of the pages, while 55% have an international focus. Economics, with 470 pages, dominates the writings within the social sciences, as well as elsewhere. In science and engineering, three areas published the most: electrical engineering (147 pages), agriculture (127), and multidisciplinary science (126). The findings suggest that researchers interested in technology transfer would benefit by adopting a multidisciplinary perspective.

A study of the relationships between service failures and customer churn in a telecommunications environment

Telecommunications companies are facing increasing customer service pressure as they launch the triple-play bundle of voice, video, and internet access services. Firms recognize that providing quality customer service in the highly competitive telecommunications industry is critical to their success and delivering poor customer experiences puts customer relationships and revenues at risk. One of the metrics used by telecommunications companies to determine their relationship with customers is “customer churn”, the degree to which a telecommunication companys customers cancel or disconnect their service. An assumption in the industry is that customer churn is directly related to customer satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to identify customers with service failures and determine the propensity for a customer to disconnect based upon the frequency of a recent service failure reported and the success of repair. The research shows that customers who subscribe for the triple-play of voice, video and internet access are more likely to cancel all services from their provider after a service failure than are other customers. The results of the research suggest a strategy for identifying customers in advance who are most likely to disconnect and developing a service request response plan to encourage them to remain loyal customers.

Resurrecting american dominance in science and engineering: The demise and rebirth of the American doctoral student in science and technology

Throughout our history, the ability of the United States to produce new innovative technology has made this country a world power, economically, politically, and technologically. However, the country is losing its dominance as a technological superpower. One of the reasons for this “quiet crisis”, as identified by Thomas Friedman, is the fact that the United States is losing scientists and engineers faster than can be replaced. There is a troubling shortage of young scientists and engineers to replenish the technical workforce and an even more severe shortage of American students opting to continue graduate education. The shortage is so severe that some view it as a threat to national security. One reason suggested for the shortage of American students in masters and Ph.D. programs is the present structure and philosophy of graduate programs in our universities. The vast majority of Ph.D. granting universities is focused on the traditional model of Ph.D. education: to create graduates for placement in other universities. This paper discusses the genesis of the “quiet crisis” from economic, political, and technological points of view and suggests an alternative approach to graduate education that broadens the focus to include much close collaboration with the private sector and government.

Lean production for technology management: Increasing production, reducing waste and quality improvement strategies in a plastic bags manufacturing facility

Given the pressures generated by the global economy, the manufacturing sector is faced with the problem of continually improving production rates and quality while cutting costs. The pressures are especially keen in the smaller manufacturing plants where resources are scant, margins are small, and skilled labor is in short supply. The introduction of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) in recent years has proven to be an important innovation to the production process, resulting in improved production and quality. However, any manufacturing process is subject to a large number of factors that are not necessarily sensitive to or controlled by a PLC. The application of relatively simple algorithms reflecting the complexity of a given production process is not likely. This project focused on a small manufacturer of plastic bags to identify the critical and non-critical factors of production and develop a strategy for the firm to manage those critical factors in order to improve production rates and quality while decreasing waste. This required the mapping of the production process, the identification of those elements that have the greatest impact on production rate and quality, and the development of a technology management system to monitor and control these sensitive elements. A systems dynamics model describing the production system abstract relationships was also developed as a tool for determining cost, quality, and schedule impacts and an enterprise perspective of the ROIC of the production system. The results of the project demonstrated a strategy that could achieve all three objectives for the company, namely increased productivity, quality, and reduced waste, all of which drive bottom line financial improvements, a key performance outcome in any lean enterprise.

A comparison of a technology development methodology with a strategy-based balanced scorecard normative model

Technology entrepreneurs facing the new product and technology development process must go through a number of stages of development before commercialization becomes a reality. Although new and innovative products, services and technologies are essential components of any strategy for competitiveness, the reality is that most ideas or inventions do not get successfully commercialized. Of the myriad of reasons for the failure of so many commercialization attempts, one is the lack of a well designed strategy to guide the development process. Our experience in assisting technology entrepreneurs has resulted in the development of a systematic methodology for evaluating and guiding the technology commercialization process. This experiential-based process focuses on the stages of development of the innovation, the identification of key problems forming barriers to development, and the application of actions designed to circumvent those problems and barriers. The objective of this paper is to present this methodology and compare its key features with a normative model suggested by concepts presented in the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategy-Focused Organization as developed by Kaplan and Norton. A Value Creation Model (VCM) and equation is proposed as a means for systematically allocating scarce resources to successfully implement a technology commercialization strategy.

Stage of technology development, knowledge management and technology transfer

Summary form only given. High technology industries are important contributors to the economic growth being experienced worldwide. The success of these industries is largely dependent upon their abilities to transfer and absorb technology in a timely manner. This research proposes that there is a strong correlation between stages of product development and the method of technology transfer. In general, early stage technologies require attention to and understanding of knowledge management concepts while transfers of mature technologies tend to focus more on market advantages. This paper develops a conceptual model that extends the understanding of the relationship between the stage of development of a technology and technology transfer.