A Proposed Technology Platform Framework to Support Technology Reuse

Managing a technology portfolio is one of the great challenges for sustained success, especially in high-technology industries where technologies can be a major selling point. For engineers, this portfolio is more of a toolbox for solving design problems, but in large organizations there can be so many technologies used in different business areas that even the engineers may not be aware of all of them. When the same technologies are used in different types of products, knowledge about them can also be generated by various groups within an organization. To improve the usefulness of a company's technology base, this paper proposes the use of a technology platform approach based on a framework featuring three different types of activities. The first approach is about adapting the technology base to future needs with the help of portfolio management techniques. The second approach serves to create awareness and shared understanding through an interactive technology catalogue, collecting information about how technologies work, where they are applied, and how they are used. The third approach is addressed at engineers who work with the technologies and includes practices for improving the reusability of knowledge recorded in documents and communicated to others who are using a particular technology for development. The framework is intended to support a systematic approach for technology reuse in order to stimulate organizational learning and reduce lead-time and cost of product development.