Real-World R&D

📖 The Scoop

While agreeing that the traditional R & D pipeline has led to significant innovations, argues that many of the best high-tech companies, particularly in the computer industry, have evolved a fundamentally different approach to new product devel- opment, called system focus; states that this integrates the entire R & D process and is characterized by a technology integration team, formed to investigate the impact of various technical choices in product design and manufacturing, in order to: balance new research with existing manufacturing capabilities; adapt new tech- nologies to what the company already knows how to do; and enhance the current system to take advantage of these new ideas. Discusses a typical profile for a successful integration team, which works on a stream of related products and forms a cohesive unit that develops from project to project, and becomes the company's repository of 'system ' knowledge over product generations. Presents a case history which illustrates the benefits provided by the system focus approach compared with traditional methods and stresses that, for it to work, the company must have a consistent technology strategy, and must view the whole R & D process as a continuous stream of competence-building projects, not a series of isolated efforts.

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