Managing Technology to Improve Competitiveness

World class manufacturers have learned to meet the demands of their customers in the competitive marketplace through a combination of enlightened management practices and leading edge technologies. Well defined business processes are used to manage their technology resources so as to achieve rapid product development, excellent initial quality, and high manufacturing productivity.

The Technology Strategies Group has worked with manufacturers in a variety of industries to align their technology competencies and engineering resources with their business strategy, to address market needs and improve their competitive position. Typically we work with our client’s technology management team to:

• determine the technology competency requirements to achieve business goals; addressing the changing state-of-technology, customer requirements, and competitive environment
• assess technical competencies comprising engineering staff; resources, facilities, and tools; processes (e.g., product development, order fulfillment); and organizational structure
• perform gap analysis to identify changing technology competency requirements
• develop a technology strategy to address current and future technology competency requirements through investment in internal resources, partnering, and outsourcing
• develop or refine their new product development process including opportunity screening, project planning, time and resource scheduling, and a multi-functional team approach to development

The outcome of our analysis and development includes:

• a technology strategy comprised of consistent technology goals, competencies, investments, organizational structure, and processes
• an opportunity screening process for objective selection of technology and product development projects
• a product development process for performing projects; addressing planning, staffing, roles and responsibilities, scheduling and monitoring, gates and milestones, and continuous improvement