Purdue’s Center for Technology Roadmapping: A Resource for Research and Education in Technology Roadmapping Jonah M. Duckles, and Edward J. Coyle Fellow, IEEE
Abstract- Strategic thinking has moved from developing
strategies for fired environments to ueating strategies that enable organizations to adapt to and benefit from change. This trend is a reaction to the increasingly dynamic nature of a global economy driven hy rapid advances in technology. In response t o this trend, Purdue University has created the Center for Technology Roadmapping (CTR). The Center’s goal is to enhance strategic planning by advancing the art and science of technology planning. A key feature of the center is a wehsite at which industry associations, research organizations, and individuals can develop roadmaps that are stored in a common data format and posted for public access. As this archive of roadmaps grows, many nniqueoppottunities will arise. In the area of roadmapping research, these include: data-mining across roadmaps from different industries; development of an ontology for technology roadmapping; and analyzing the dynamics of roadmaps over time. In the area of education, these opportunities include: new tools and topics for courses in technology planning and management; the use of roadmapping tools and techniques in undergraduate design courses; an Executive Masters program in technology roadmapping; and broader dissemination of technology information throughout society.
Inah Terms- Strategic Ranning, Technology Planning, Technological Innovation, Technology Forecasting
I. 1NTRODUCTION
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echnology roadmapping is a technique used by many business and research organizations to plan for the future [1,2]. Its goal is to anticipate extemally driven innovations in technology and to cultivate intemal innovations by “mapping” them on a temporal scale. The resulting innovation process can then be linked with the research, product and market strategies of the organization, of its suppliers and of its customers. As the pace of innovation in a technology area accelerates, the benefits of Manuscript received lune 1,2002. 1. M. Duckles is the Coordinator of the Center for Technology Roadmapping, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1285, USA (
[email protected]). E. 1. Coyle is the Director of the Center for Technology Roadmapping and Assistant Vice President for Research, Purdue University, West Lafayette, M 47907-1285, USA (
[email protected];+I 765 494-3470).
0-7803-7385-5/02/$17.00 02002 IEEE.
an effective roadmapping process grow. This can most clearly be seen in the semiconductor industry. In this rapidly evolving area, the roadmapping process has become essential to effective planning and management of very large-scale investments in the development of processing equipment and construction offabrication facilities. Bob Galvin of Motorola is widely considered the father of the practice of technology roadmapping [3]. Groups of people in the company would come together to develop a consensus vision for the future of technology areas that affected their business. Motorola found that the establishment of this pervasive culture of technology roadmapping enabled the company to produce roadmaps that “...communicate visions, a m c t resources from business and government, stimulate investigations, and monitor progress. They [Roadmaps] become the inventory of possibilities for a particular field, thus stimulating earlier, more targeted investigations [4].” 11. SO€TWARE ASSISTED ROADMAPPING
When Motorola began developing roadmaps in the 1970’s, they were primarily produced on paper [ 5 ] . These paper-based roadmaps were very useful for those that participated in their development, but were often found to have limited use beyond the initial group participating in their creation. These limitations included (a) the static nature of paper as an information medium vs. the dynamic nature of the roadmap itself; (b) the difficulties involved in crossindexing and linking paper-based roadmaps from different groups; and (c) the limited accessibility of any paper-based document. By the late 1990s, these limitations led some groups within Motorola to explore various software methods for creating and managing roadmaps [ 5 ] . They freely shared these software tools and ideas with the rest of Motorola. After several iterations of enterprisewide software roadmapping solutions, the Learning Trust, a software development firm (http://www.leamingtrust.com/f, worked closely with Motorola to develop an enterprisewide roadmapping tool called the Geneva Vision Sfrazegist. Use of the Vision Strategist tool became pervasive at Motorola soon after its rollout for evaluation in 2001. Thousands of live, interlinked roadmaps are now in the database and corporate-wide access to these roadmaps is now possible. This has enabled Motorola to identify
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duplicated research efforts, better coordinate related development efforts, and achieve widespread understanding of the technology goals of the corporation. The success of this softwareassisted roadmapping effort at Motorola, and the recognized need for such tools within other organizations, has led to its recent evaluation by other corporations, including Honeywell, Sikorsky, and Xerox. Adoption of Vision Strategist by a large number of organizations would lead to it becoming the de facto standard for enterprise roadmapping. This would provide many additional benefits for organizations that use the tool. The most obvious benefit is the ability to link a corporation's roadmaps with those of its suppliers and customers, leading to much better alignment of research and product development efforts across as well as within organizations. A longer-term benefit is the creation of a common language and vision for pre-competitive technology issues that affect entire industries. III. THE PURDUE CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY ROADMAPPING The potential benefits of using the Vision Strategist tool in addressing industry-wide technology issues and the need to introduce roadmapping into the technology management curricula in universities, led Motorola and The Leaming Trust to partner with Purdue University to create the Purdue Center for Technology Roadmapping (CTR). The Center, which was launched in May 2001, supports interdisciplinary efforts in research and education in the areas of technology planning and technology policy. The initial focus of the center, and the topic of this paper, is the development of research efforts and education programs centered on the new opportunities for technology management provided by software-assisted roadmapping. The Leaming Trusts' Geneva Vision Straregist software roadmapping tool has been licensed to Purdue to support these efforts and programs. It is available on-line at (http://roadmap.ecn.purdu.edu/) for use by any organization or individual interested in developing and posting publicly viewable technology roadmaps.
N. THE VISIONSTRATEGISTTOOL Geneva Vision Strategist is a unique software tool that enables large organizations to effectively communicate their strategic visions across their enterprise. It also has capabilities that can assist efforts to track extemal trends and drivers of immediate concem to the organization. With Vision Strategist, roadmaps are stored in a common data format in a central database server. The common data format allows all roadmaps to be easily viewed and compared with each other by anyone in the organization. It thus enables all members of the organization to see how their plans and projects fit into overall goals and objectives. Roadmaps can also have associations with other roadmaps of higher or lower levels of granularity, thus providing a means for the creation of a roadmap hierarchy based on the structure of the organization. Fig. 1 illustrates
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an example where all roadmaps created in the organization feed to either higher or lower level roadmaps. Technology Roadmaps are concerned with emerging areas of technology that pose threats or offer opportunities. Product Roadmaps represent the deliverables of the organization, and Environment Roadmaps are concemed with the overall vision of the economic environment in which the organization operates.
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Fig. 1 Each roadmap produced within a large organizations can feed into roadmaps of higher or lower granularity in the
oreanization. V. ROADMAPPING FOR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS Using the Vision Strategist tool at Purdue University, we plan to assist large organizations with the production of roadmaps that are useful for comparison to their own internal roadmaps. Our first step in this effort has been to approach industry associations that produce publicly available roadmaps. We have worked closely with the industry association IPC (htlp:/Iwww.ipc.org/) (a US-based industry association for the printed circuit board industry) to begin placing large portions of their roadmap into the data format of the Vision Strategist tool. This will allow companies that are concemed with interconnect technologies to easily compare the IPC roadmap to roadmaps covering the same or similar topics that were developed within their own organization. The IPC roadmap feeds into both the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) roadmap and the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). A portion of the ITRS is shown in Figure 2 on the
next page. Based upon our success working with IPC,it is OUT hope that the roadmaps of these additional industry associations can also be housed on our site. This would simplify the creation of explicit linkages between these roadmaps. These links could provide a vertically integrated roadmap that encompasses topics from semiconductor physics through the design of circuit board interconnects. Another benefit to industry associations of locating their roadmaps on the CTR website is a feature available in Vision Strategist that enables collaborative creation and updating of these roadmaps. With this feature, it is much easier to ensure that the most recent version of a roadmap is always available on-line. The Vision Strotegist tool could thus (a) lighten the burden on those charged with creating and updating roadmaps, and @) make it much easier to link roadmaps between industry associations.
roadmaps provides one location where they can monitor technology trends and expected developments in industry, thus enabling a clearer picture of where govemment research can provide the most impact. It also provides a way for them to manage thzir funded research projects if the investigators they fund maintain roadmaps of their research projects on the site and update them on a semiannual or annual basis. For universities, the archive offers many unique opportunities in both research and education. Pursuit of these opportunities, which are described in the next two sections, is the primary motivation of the Partnership amongst Motorola, the Learning Trust, and Purdue University.
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W. R O A D W P W G RESEARCH Once the roadmap archive at the Purdue Center for Technology Roadmapping contains a large number of technology roadmaps produced by industry associations, created by govemment research organizations, donated for historic purposes by corporations, etc., the common data format in which they are stored opens up many research possibilities, These include datamining of collections of roadmaps, development of a roadmapping ontology, and roadmap forensics. A. Datamining of the Roadmap Archive
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When the roadmap archive encompasses roadmaps from many different industries and other sources, software tools for mining valuable information will prove very useful. The list of potential purposes to which the datamining tool could be aonlied include: ..Creotieg links between roadmaps that were not
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previously knoun f a have any association. For example, roadmaps from the chemical industry and the semiconductor industry might address the same topic but in different language (key words) and in different contexts (products). Datamining to find these links could enable new connections between these industries to be quickly identified and then made explicit by linking the affected roadmaps in the archive. Identifling existing solutiondapertise for problems identified in other roadmaps. Just as research and development efforts are often duplicated within even a single large corporation, it is likely that at least some problems that arise in one industry have been successfully addressed in another. Discovering these technology reuse opportunities would be facilitated by datamining and maintenance of the histones of roadmaps for all industry associations via version control ofroadmaps maintained on the site. Identifying rechnologv development opportunities in the goals and results of research efforts. If unclassified govemment-funded research and technology development efforts in universities maintain roadmaps at CTR, they could be datamined by industry and venture capitalists searching for new commercial opportunities. This could significantly accelerate tbe technology
portion of the 2001
ITFS Roadmap. This roadmap and the full IPC roadmap can now be viewed by anyone who has registered and been approved for use ofthe CTR website.
VI. BENEFITS OF A LARGE ROADMAe ARCHIVE The existence of a large archive of publicly available roadmaps stored in a common data format that can be viewed and updated with a single software tool opens many unique opportunities for corporations, for government research organizations, and for universities. For corporations, it provides a free public resource that they can use to: (a) calibrate their internal technology roadmaps; (b) understand the consensus developed within a given industry about critical pre-competitive issues affecting the future; and (c) monitor the issues and technologies of many industries in order to anticipatelidentify threats and opportunities. Success in any of these three uses of the archive should enable Purdue to develop industrial partnerships that support the creation of a large archive of roadmaps from many industries. For govemment research organizations that operate in the public domain - such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the National Institutes of Health - the archive of
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transfer process that is often the final goal of govemment-sponsored research.
B. Roadmap Forensics and the Innovation Process A large roadmap archive in which version control is available should yield significant data about the characteristics of the processes of technology planning and technology management. It should he possible, for example, to determine the degree of success in predicting the rate of development of technology in a given industry and correlate this with such extemal factors as intemational competition, govemment policies, and level of research investment. It should also he possible to identify technologies or technology areas in which innovations are either especially difficult or especially easy to anticipate. C . A Roadmapping Ontology As discussed in [6], an ontology is a “formal explicit specification of a shared conceptualization.” A roadmapping ontology would therefore he an abstract model of how people think about the technology planning and technology management processes. Establishment of a roadmapping ontology would mean that the concepts and relationships in an abstract technology roadmapping process are given explicit terms and definitions. At its most basic level, establishment of a roadmapping ontology is the creation of standards for the discussion, creation and management of roadmaps. Examples of such processes can he found in the many industry associations and other organizations that already sustain long-term roadmapping efforts. The diversity of approaches to roadmapping, from graphical-based roadmaps like the one shown in Figure 2 to narrative roadmaps that are essentially a listing of goals, indicates a clear need to develop a unifying ontology for this area. The research goal is to use approaches, such as those described in [7,8], to bring together roadmapping practitioners from many different technology areas to develop an abstract, formal specification of the roadmapping process. Success would provide the basis of machine as well human inference both within and between technology areas. It could provide the guidance needed to develop open standards for roadmapping that serve both the community and roadmap software developers like the Leaming Trust.
Wr. ROADMAPPING EDUCATION The Purdue Center for Technology Roadmapping is dedicated to advancing technology roadmapping and technology management by creating and sustaining education efforts in this area. These efforts will take the several forms: graduate courses; use of the roadmapping process in university design courses; creation of technology roadmapping workshops for industry-based technology managers; and providing technology information for the public at-large. A. Roadmapping and Technology Management Courses The plans for CTR include the creation of courses in technology management within the graduate program of the School of Industrial Engineering at F’urdue University. %e
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of the first courses to be created will he in the area of technology roadmapping. It will cover the history and practice of technology roadmapping in several fields, with particular roadmaps as case studies. Software tools for roadmapping, such as Vision Strategist, the development of roadmap ontologies and technology categorization should also be covered.
B. Roadmapping in Undergraduate Design Courses The Accreditation Board f o r Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the United States has released new criteria for accreditation of undergraduate engineering curricula [9].Criterion 3 calls for engineering curricula to provide students with “an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modem engineering tools necessary for engineering practice.” This criterion has resulted in the creation at many of design courses that require students to design and develop a “product,” starting with from a verbal description of what it should do. In the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) Program at Purdue University, for example, students pursue long-term, large-scale design projects that solve problems for community organizations [lo]. In several cases, student design teams at two or more universities cooperate on very large-scale projects with such national-scale organizations as Habitat for Humanity. 7’he Vision Strafegist tool could be used by these coalitions of EPICS teams to coordinate their design efforts, identify gaps in expertise, coordinate technology plans with their community partner, and develop plans that account for expected evolution of technologies in the next five to ten years. The students completing EPICS will thus have an appreciation for the technology roadmapping process as well as direct experience using software roadmapping tools.
C. Executive Masters in Technology Management The long-term plans of the Center include the development of an Executive Master’s Program in the area of Technology Planning and Technology Management. This program would complement the undergraduate and graduate efforts described above by providing an opportunity for practicing engineering managers to participate in highly focused twoweek long courses in this area. A specialization in the task of introducing of technology roadmapping into an organization and sustaining the process after its introduction will be one aspect of the curricula. This effort is aimed at the needs of practicing engineers who have recently moved into research management, engineering management or management of product development. These new technology managers must be responsible for hacking developments that occur outside as well as inside their organization. They must become aware of and use all available information, much of which resides in roadmaps, if they are to make the best decisions.
D. A Technology-Literate Society The CTR’s searchable archive of publicly available technology roadmaps will provide significant benefits to faculty, students, industry associations, and policy makers. For faculty and students, it provides a location on the web where they can explore the future of a particular technology
field. They might do so to make better-informed career decisions, to understand where their chosen field is headed, or simply to explore different technology areas in order to broaden their background. Industry associations can obtain significant social benefits from the public posting of their roadmaps. Students examining the roadmap of an industry might become interested in applying for a position when they see evidence of exciting plans for the future. Faculty looking for applications of their research may find opportunities in their area via datamining of the roadmap archive. For policy makers, the CTR archive provides a single site they can mine for information on expected developments in technology. They can also find contacts for further information about those developments and, eventually, participate in on-line discussions between those who construct the roadmaps and those who construct technology policy.
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CONCLUSION
The success of the CTR will depend on the rate at which the archive of technology roadmaps can be built and the set of organizations that actively update their roadmaps using the site. The Center must therefore focus on three tasks: (a) making industry associations aware of the roadmap tools and software available at the CTR; @) providing assistance for any organization wishing to use the site to host and update its roadmaps; (e) providing access to technology roadmapping expertise and processes for organizations wishing to initiate the roadmapping process [I I]; and (d) establishing an on-line forum for the creation of a technology roadmapping ontology. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank both Jim Richey of Motorola and Carl Dietz of The Leaming Trust for their help in conceptualizing, establishing, and supporting the Purdue Center for Technology Roadmapping. At Purdue, we would like to thank Jim Bor“, VP for Information Technology, and Prof. Joe Pekny, Director of the eEnterprise Center, for the resources and valuable advice they have provided during the critical start-up phase of the Center.
[7] H. Lindstone and M. Turoff, The Delphi Method: Technology and Applications, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1975. [ 8 ] C.W. Holslpple and K.D.Joshi, “A Collaborative Approach to Ontology Design,” Communications of the ACM, Vol.45,No. 2, Febmry 2002,pp. 42-47. [9] Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, “20022003 Engineering Criteria,” hnp://www.abet.org/criteria.html. [IO] E.J. Coyle, L.H. Jmieson and H.G. Die% “LoneTerm
Community Service Projects in the Purdue Engineering Cuniculum,” Proceedings of the 1996 ASEE Annual Conference: Capitol Gains in Engineering Education, Washington, DC, June 23-36,1996. [ I I] R. Phaal, C. Famkh, and D. Probert, “T-Plan: The fast Start to Technology Roadmapping,” University of Cambridge, Institute for Manufacturing,2001.
X. BIOGRAF’HIES Jonah M. Duekles received a BS in Physics in 2001 from Purdue University. He is Coordinator of the Center for Technology Roadmapping created at Purdue in June 2001. He has assisted the Purdue’s Vice President for Information Technology and the newly founded Purdue @,Enterprise Center at Purdue in developing strategic plans for their organizations. His interests include technology policy and planning, quantum computing, cryptography, and software engineering. Fdward J. Coyle received a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1977 from the University of Delaware and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1982 from Princeton University. Since 1982 he has been with Purdue University, where he is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Assistant Vice President for Research. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus of the University of Delaware. He is the Director of the Center for Technology Roadmapping, which was created in June 2001. His research interests include technology policy and planning, computer networks, digital signal processing, and engineering education.
REFERENCES R. Phaal, C. F a m U and D. Probert “Technology Roadmapping: linking technology resources to business objectives” Cambridge University, Center for Technology Management.Nov I1,200l. D. Barker and DJH Smith, ‘”Technology Foresight Using Roadmapping,” Long Ronge Planning, Vol. 28,No. 2, 1995. Robert R. Schaller, “Technology Roadmaps: Implications for Innovation, Strategy and Policy,” Ph.D. Dissettation bending), T h e Institute of Public Policy, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA R. Galvin “Science Roadmaps,” Science, Vol. 280,p.803, May 8, 1998.
M. Grimell, J. Richey and E. MeQueen, “Case Study: Innovation Roadmapping Using Enterprise Automation Software,”Motorola Whitcpaper, April 2002. M. Gruningcr and J. Lee, “Ontology: Applications and Design,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 45,No. 2, February 2002, pp. 39-41.
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