T99 - "Directing R&D: An Update in the Sciences of Management"

SMMA The Motor & Motion Association, 2014 Spring Management Conference, Sanibel, Florida, USA
April 23, 2014 -- [54 Pages]

Description: This presentation was made at the SMMA [Motor & Motion Control Association] Spring 2014 Management Conference in Sanibel, Florida.  SMMA holds two "member company" conferences each year for their approximately 110 member companies.  The Spring Management Conference is geared to top management, and to direction setting for the industry.

This keynote presentation was focused on the emerging trends and practices that are likely to occuipy a greater share of top management's time in the next five years.

Abstract: In the 1970s, great changes began occurring in western companies.  Asian competitors started coming of age in their ability to compete, causing the need for many western business and execution models to be upgraded.  It is not an easy task to change practices and cultures and institutions that have been successful since the advent of the assembly line.  What we do in the west is to fix the easiest things first.  We are still actively engaged in doing that. 

The easiest fix was logistics and distribution.  After all was said and done in R&D and manufacturing, how quickly could a company get its finished packaged product to a destination?  By the early 1980s, we had one day delivery to anywhere on the globe.  It took about ten years to accomplish that.  The next easiest thing was to streamline manufacturing operations.  Companies already knew how to make the product, we just needed to make it faster.  Manufacturing was more complex however.  The supply base, inventory, quality, and a host of other areas needed to be addressed.  It took a couple of decades to wring out that fat and get into an entitlement zone.   It would make sense that R&D came next, and so it has.  Being even more complex, creating something out of nothing, realizing entitlement would be an even longer journey. Much progress has been made, though much remains.  Road maps, portfolio management, concepting, modeling, innovation, intellectual property, stage-gate, lean, six sigma, agile, flexible, and the increasing rate of technology cycles have already brought great change to the directing of R&D.  We will recap some of the major changes that have already occurred, examine some that are still being tackled, and glimpse the future of what is yet to come.

Section Titles:

R&D Management Evolution & Revolution	Page 4
Innovation Strategy	Page 8
Roadmap, Portfolio, Pipeline Control	Page 20
Measuring Innovation	Page 32
State-Of-The-Industry Metrics Practices	Page 45
Summary	Page 52-54

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