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                                                                          OM02

                                                   Technology Management

(For CNM Cases)

                                                                   Assignment - I

  Assignment Code: 2016OM02A1                              Last Date of Submission: 30^th April 2016

                                                                                       Maximum Marks: 100

Attempt all the questions. All the questions are compulsory and carry equal marks.

                                                                         Section-A

1          Discuss the challenges faced by a developing economy such as India in selection &         implementation of suitable technology. How can India prevent being a dumping yard for          outdated, costly and irrelevant technologies?

2          Elaborate the four core elements of technology and all the respective component with       examples.

3          Discuss the role of Information Technology and its implication in Technology                        Management.

4          Explain the Japanese model of technology development.  What are the issues in   implementing the three phases of Japanese model?

Section-B

 

Case Study

Benchmarking: Tales from the front

MOTOROLA

Motorola was an early pioneer in benchmarking.  Among its other successes, it managed to slash the time taken to close the company’s books at year-end from 14 to two days.

In the early 1980s, the company set an ambitious goal: It would improve a set of basic quality parameters tenfold in five years.  The goal was reached, based only on internal comparisons, in three years.  There were congratulations all around, handshakes, merit badges for all.  Then Motorola looked outside.  It sent teams to visit the plants of its Japanese competitors.  To their chagrin, the teams found that Motorola would have to improve its tenfold-improvement level of quality measures another two to three times just to match the competition.

Kenneth J.Obrzut, director of group sector strategic programs in Motorola’s MIS department, offers the moral of the story: “Benchmarking helps determine what your accomplishments really are, and gives you a chance to match or exceed the best in the business.”

For one factory in Florida, Motorola has since borrowed an order-entry process from Wal-Mart, adopted Benetton’s idea of asking its stores to relay customer preferences on store items directly to headquarters through computer linkup, and even scavenged techniques from Domino’s Pizza.  Ten years after `Motorola began benchmarking, the company routinely fields benchmarking requests from those same Japanese companies it toured the first time around.

Case Question:

Motorola moved from internal to external benchmarking.  What justified this move?  Do you agree?