Developing a framework for make-or-buy decisions

The make-or-buy question represents a fundamental dilemma faced by many companies. Companies have finite resources and cannot always afford to have all manufacturing technologies in-house. This has resulted in an increasing awareness of the importance of make-or-buy decisions. This paper reports on the development of a make-or-buy framework to address the make-or-buy decision for either a specific individual part or family of parts. Firstly, a literature review of the principal make-or-buy approaches is discussed. Secondly, the development of a make-or-buy framework is described and the framework is explained and illustrated using case studies. Thirdly, the operationalisation of the framework is outlined. The paper concludes with a discussion of its contribution to both the academic understanding of the subject, and the improvement of industrial practice.

Developing a framework for mapping industrial emergence

The industrial landscape is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic, with innovative technologies stimulating the emergence of new industries and business models. This paper presents a preliminary framework for mapping industrial emergence, based on roadmapping principles, in order to understand the nature and characteristics of such phenomena. The focus at this stage is on historical examples of industrial emergence, with the preliminary framework based on observations from 20 'quick scan' maps, one of which is used to illustrate the framework. The learning from these historical cases, combined with further industrial consultation and literature review, will be used to develop practical methods for strategy and policy application. The paper concludes by summarising key learning points and further work needed to achieve these outcomes. © 2009 PICMET.

A philosophical stance on developing industrially relevant strategic technology management toolkits

When considering the potential uptake and utilization of technology management tools by industry, it must be recognized that companies face the difficult challenges of selecting, adopting and integrating individual tools into a toolkit that must be implemented within their current organizational processes and systems. This situation is compounded by the lack of sound advice on integrating well-founded individual tools into a robust toolkit that has the necessary degree of flexibility such that they can be tailored for application to specific problems faced by individual organizations. As an initial stepping stone to offering a toolkit with empirically proven utility, this paper provides a conceptual foundation to the development of toolkits by outlining an underlying philosophical position based on observations from multiple research and commercial collaborations with industry. This stance is underpinned by a set of operationalized principles that can offer guidance to organizations when deciding upon the appropriate form, functions and features that should be embodied by any potential tool/toolkit. For example, a key objective of any tool is to aid decision-making and a core set of powerful, flexible, scaleable and modular tools should be sufficient to allow users to generate, explore, shape and implement possible solutions across a wide array of strategic issues. From our philosophical stance, the preferred mode of engagement is facilitated workshops with a participatory process that enables multiple perspectives and structures the conversation through visual representations in order to manage the cognitive load in the collaborative environment. The generic form of the tools should be configurable for the given context and utilized in a lightweight manner based on the premise of start small and iterate fast. © 2011 IEEE.