Technology Transfer and the Product Development Process
It is my pleasure this morning to address a topic that is much talked about in passing but rarely examined from a first person point of view. That topic is Technology Transfer. Over the next 30 minutes I'd like to approach Technology Transfer within the context of the Product Development Process looking at it from the perspectives of the federal government researcher and the industry manufacturer/user. Fist let us recognize that we are living in an ''Information Age'', where global economic and military competition is determined as much by technology as it is by natural resource assets. It is estimated that technical/scientific information is presently growing at a rate of l3 percent per year; this is expected to increase to 30 percent per year by the turn of the century. In fact, something like 90 percent of all scientific knowledge has been generated in the last 30 years; this pool will double again in the next 10-15 years (Exhibit 1). Of all the scientists and engineers throughout history, 90% live and work in the present time. Successfully managing this technical information/knowledge--i.e., transforming the results of R&D to practical applications--will be an important measure of national strength. A little over a dozen years ago, the United States with only 5 percent of the world's population was generating approximately 75 percent of the world's technology. The US. share is now 50 percent and may decline to 30 percent by the turn of the century. This decline won't be because of downturn in U.S. technological advances but because the other 95 percent of the world's population will be increasing its contribution. Economic and military strength then, will be determined by how quickly and successfully companies, industries, and nations can apply new technological information to practical applications--i.e., how they manage technology transfer within the context of the product development process. Much discussion and pronouncements are ongoing in public forums today over the apparent decline in global competitiveness of U.S. industry. The question is why does U.S. industry not succeed in the development and marketing of competitive products when they lead in the generation of new technology.
- Research Organization:
- Geothermal Technology Division, U.S. Department of Energy
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 890481
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-890352-2; TRN: US200622%%634
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: DOE Research and Development for the Geothermal Marketplace, Proceedings of the Geothermal Program Review VII; San Francisco, CA, March 21-23, 1989
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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