Technology Commercialization Process

Developed R&D business processes to enable commercialization of Science & Technology Platforms

Missing opportunities due to the lack of technology base 

A company had a very mature stage-gate process for new product development.  However, the projects that required technology development prior to advancing to the product development stage were ranked as “not ready” and typically “killed” as high-risk projects.  The company ultimately recognized that many of these programs had the potential for providing exciting new products with high differentiating value and therefore could be a good source of new growth and profitability if only they had a strong technology base.

Integrating Technology development with existing R&D business process

We worked with the R&D management team to design a process for integrating the technology platform programs with the active program portfolio.

By developing a disciplined approach for technology development and merging two concepts – Technology Readiness Level and Design for Six Sigma- we created the focus on generating the knowledge needed to advance the program into the product development stage. This allowed for easy integration of this new process with the existing stage gate process.  As a result, the two processes became complementary rather than conflicting.

The new way to structure Technology Development is working 

This process has been successfully used by the company since 2007 contributing to increased revenues generated from the new products.