Managing Technology Development

This chapter introduces the reader to technology development process and the terminology of Technology Readiness levelTechnology Readiness Level (TRL). The importance of customer involvement from very early stage of technology development is discussed, and the term Customer Acceptance LevelCustomer Acceptance Level (CAL) (CAL) is introduced. Any new technology development often starts with ideation of a technology, which further gets developed into concepts, which in turn is developed into prototypes and subsequently into a product after passing through a rigorous design and testing process. To make the technology ready for the market to be used by the customers, it undergoes a development process. During this process, the Technology Readiness LevelTechnology Readiness Level (TRL) (TRL) matures as it passes through various stages of development. Similarly, the customers are neither aware of the technology nor have any confidence in the technology at the very early stage of development. We call this as Customer acceptance level (CAL). Initially at TRL value 0, CALCustomer Acceptance Level (CAL) is also zero. CAL value grows slowly as the customer awareness grows, and customer is engaged with the development process and gain confidence on the technology. The need for understanding the management of creative people is touched upon, and the need for a structured well-defined process for technology development is also discussed, to achieve fast-paced technology development process. This chapter discusses why concurrent engineeringConcurrent engineering pioneered by NASA is preferred over traditional sequential design flow as in waterfall modelWaterfall model used in technology development. Chinese way of industrializing innovationInnovation process is also touched upon very briefly.