the application of operation and technology roadmapping to aid singaporean smes identify and select...

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 349–357

The application of Operation and Technology Roadmapping to aid

Singaporean SMEs identify and select emerging technologies

Chris Holmes*, Mike Ferrill

Industry Development Office, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, 71 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 267937

Received 1 February 2004; received in revised form 15 June 2004; accepted 22 August 2004

Abstract

In order to aid Singaporean SMEs identify and select emerging technologies for business benefit, a modified

process of the Cambridge T-Plan methodology has been introduced and applied to a pilot sample of 30 companies

in a variety of manufacturing sectors. This fast and simple process takes the company through five key steps to

enable them to create their first Operation and Technology Roadmap (OTR). The paper explains the background to

the approach and focuses on the initial benefits identified by a survey of the pilot companies.

D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Roadmapping; SMEs; Product development; Business strategy; Operational improvement

1. Introduction

The use of technology roadmaps came to the forefront with Motorola in the late 1970s [1]. Since then,

the technique has been widely applied in many different industry sectors, such as the international

technology roadmap for semiconductors [2], specific companies including both MNCs and SMEs, and

national sectors, e.g., Foresight Vehicle Technology Roadmap [3]. In order to understand the different

types of roadmap now in existence, the taxonomy described by Kappel [4] has been used splitting

roadmaps into four key areas: science/technology roadmaps, industry roadmaps, product/technology

roadmaps and product roadmaps.

0040-1625/$ -

doi:10.1016/j.t

* Correspo

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nding author.

ress: [email protected] (C. Holmes).

C. Holmes, M. Ferrill / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 349–357350

At the company level, it is felt that key factors determining the type of roadmap produced are the

company’s size and dominance in the industry. Large companies with multinational status tend to

roadmap in separate divisions along product and product group lines while their R&D centres may

start to dominate in science/technology roadmaps [5]. Additionally, dominant companies, in

particular industries, start to produce de facto Industry Roadmaps. At the other end of the

spectrum, SMEs roadmapping in the UK with the Cambridge T-Plan [6] approach typically

employed several hundred to a few thousand people and normally produced company centric

product/technology roadmaps.

In terms of this paper, the key focus is on the use of a form of product/technology roadmap

within SMEs in Singapore. Product/technology roadmaps are specifically company centric and seek

to align decisions with trends, schedule product and/or service introductions and create a plan that

integrates market and customer needs, product evolution and the introduction of new technology

[7].

2. Previous work roadmapping in the SME environment

In general, the evolution of roadmapping techniques in each quadrant has been led by management

practice rather than management theory. One exception would be the development of the T-Plan

approach by Cambridge University [6], which provides a quick and systematic approach for the creation

of company-specific product/technology roadmaps for SMEs within the UK. This methodology aims to

make maximum use of the time committed by a company’s senior management/participants to rapidly

produce a first-cut technology roadmap that clearly links technology development and acquisition to

business drivers and strategy. Although customizable, the basis for each company is four modules each

involving a half-day session where standard brainstorming, theming and prioritizing techniques are used

to address the three key layers of the roadmap: Market Environment and Objectives, Product Offering

and Technology.

2.1. Session 1—market environment and business objectives

The first session involves a facilitated brainstorming session to identify and agree key dimensions

of product and company performance, market (external) and business (internal) drivers. The team

will work through a number of exercises to establish the above for different market segments as

well as establish some simple grouped themes and allocate priorities. The general strategic context

is considered and key knowledge gaps are identified for initial investigation prior to the next

session.

2.2. Session 2—product/service offering

Key product features are identified and grouped, and their impact on market and business drivers is

assessed. Alternative product development strategies are considered and key knowledge gaps are

identified for further investigation. The emphasis of this session remains firmly on the dimensions of the

product offering that the company staff believes necessary to compete in the defined markets for a

number of years.

Fig. 1. Generic roadmap architecture.

C. Holmes, M. Ferrill / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 349–357 351

2.3. Session 3—technology

Alternate technology options capable of contributing to the desired product features are identified and

grouped into themes and their potential impact on the product offering assessed. Again key knowledge

gaps are identified for further investigation. In this module, the team discusses the feasibility and

practical use of current technology and/or potential future trends, implementation issues and timing.

2.4. Session 4—charting

The outputs from the previous sessions are brought together on a roadmap. Milestones are placed and

the product offering evolution charted along with appropriate technology responses to achieve the

business aims. Key gaps are identified for further investigation. A separate sublayer can also be created

which contains details of general resources available or needed such as people, skills and finance. The

generic roadmap architecture produced is shown in Fig. 1.

3. Situation in Singapore

Much of the local manufacturing base in Singapore consists of about 2000 SMEs (defined principally

as companies with less than 200 people), employing a total of over 100,000 people. A majority of these

companies supply services or component manufacture to multinational companies manufacturing in the

region with few own product companies. This was identified as an issue in the recent Economic Review

Committee report [8], which in turn emphasized the need to encourage such companies to move to

greater value adding activities over the coming years. However, in common with similar-sized

companies around the world, many of these companies also have few formal planning structures

particularly at the strategic level where they rarely look out more than a few months. These factors raise

the challenge of pushing the companies to develop a longer-term view more in-line with that required for


successful technology development and acquisition in support of product and/or service planning. It also

makes it difficult to divorce the technology required to develop product/service features from that needed

for any other area of the company (such as general operational improvement, supply chain and

marketing initiatives) as the company needs to survive in its current markets in the interim.

Furthermore, it is important at the outset to define what is meaningfully meant by technology in

an SME environment. Whilst technology roadmapping may be viewed as having a dpuretechnologyT focus (i.e., the application of physical science developments), to be useful to a small

company, the definition of technology within such firms needs to be much wider. Technology can

also be viewed as encompassing general knowledge acquisition including softer issues particularly

when related to bringing a technology-based product or service to market. This raises issues of

introducing both technical and administrative innovation, notably the development of soft areas,

such as technology management, along with marketing and distribution skills and systems. Again, to

ensure impact, these issues need to be aligned and integrated with the acquisition of pure

technology systems.

As roadmapping essentially applies structured processes to support collaboration between R&D,

Marketing and Production, in these circumstances, it can easily become a more general process of

aligning a firm’s resources and activities to generate a plan to deliver competitive advantage in

anticipation of forecasted needs. Consequently, the fine line between product/service roadmapping and

general business strategy can become blurred in the smaller firm such that the roadmapping techniques

start to be used as an integrated approach to assist senior management decision making.

Therefore, the operating domain of roadmapping in an SME is much wider than may initially be

apparent, which in turn considerably widens the scope for delivering benefit to the firm. Hence, the focus

of this paper may justifiably encompass general business capability development as opposed to just

technology planning. Consequently, the introduction of roadmapping not only assists the adoption and

development of dpure technologyT but also includes the nurturing of the difficult to imitate softer

technological management and business capabilities, which ultimately define the SME’s distinctive

competitive advantage. The result is often a general technology roadmap in support of general company

strategy, which became known as an Operation and Technology Roadmap (OTR).

4. Methodology

It was noticed that few companies developed any formal strategic plan and most lacked any form of

structured technology management. What appeared necessary was a quick process that would facilitate

the management team in developing a technology roadmap. It was decided, therefore, that a modified

version of the Cambridge T-Plan approach held the best chance of success. The principle modifications

were as follows:

(a) Broaden the definition of technology to include soft issues and general business development in-

line with the discussion above. This would allow dtechnologyT themes, such as training,

recruitment, finance for technology and even market studies.

(b) Tighten up the front end of the process. Principally, this involved using a semistructured

questionnaire focused on strategic issues with the senior management team as a whole. This

provided an initial challenge to the strategic thinking in the company prior to the first market

Fig. 2. Revised OTR process.


workshop allowing time to consider any gaps. It also provided a current position statement of the

company’s strategy.

(c) External technology specialists from government research institutes and/or university departments

would be invited to contribute where appropriate. Normally, this would be within the technology

workshop but occasionally through all workshops. The advantage to the technology specialists was

that business issues would be teased out and aligned prior to the technology discussion hence

maximizing the impact of the time they spent with the company.

Essentially, the overall process approach was now represented by Fig. 2.

Between Oct. 2002 and April 2004, this process has been used to create 36 Operation and

Technology Roadmaps with 33 companies varying in size from 3 to approximately 10,000 people,

although the majority employed between 50 and 200 people. The companies were asked to complete a

survey normally within one month of completing the roadmapping exercise. The survey used a Likert

scale to measure the impact that the roadmap had along particular questions. The main areas under

investigation were the general feeling of satisfaction and initial benefit obtained from roadmapping,

and the level to which the company had developed its market orientation. The results discussed in this

paper are concerned principally with the first question. Further research is ongoing on the second

issue.

At the time of writing, 24 companies had completed the survey. Theory suggests a sample set in the

region of 200+ firms would be necessary to produce results with greater than 90% confidence. This is

clearly impractical, even in the future, as the companies are diverse and will all be at different points on

the OTR maturity cycle. The data are therefore imperfect for hard conclusion, but acceptable to provide

an early indication of OTR impact.

5. Results from pilot sample

5.1. Satisfaction/continuation rating

In order to understand how the companies viewed the roadmap creation process and how they valued

the roadmap created, they were asked whether they would continue with the activity and adopt it as a

standard tool in the companies’ planning process. The results in Fig. 3 show that all the companies were

planning to continue with the activity. Approximately 60% planned to use it as an ad hoc activity when

the need to update the roadmap arose, and 40% planned to use the approach as a regular strategic

Fig. 3. Likelihood of repeating OTR.


planning exercise. Again, none of the companies in the survey had any form of Operation and

Technology Roadmap in place before the OTR process was started—hence, the zero result for dhas beendone more than onceT.

In terms of the overall satisfaction ratings from the OTR exercise, companies were asked to what

degree they felt they had incorporated their objectives successfully into the roadmap on the first attempt.

Table 1 shows the views of those who have completed the OTR exercise and responded to the survey. As

can be seen, 85% of the reporting companies felt that most or all of their objectives had been

successfully incorporated in the roadmap. Objective incorporation is reviewed by the facilitators with

each company at the end of the charting workshop. Consequently, while currently not part of the survey

results, the authors can confirm that the five companies in the process of responding also felt that a high

percentage of objectives had been met.

Table 1

Objective satisfaction

All objectives achieved including unexpected benefits 17%

All objectives achieved 4%

Useful exercise with most of the objectives met 61%

Useful exercise with objectives partially met 13%

Objectives achieved to a limited extent 0%

Too early to tell 4%

Fig. 4. Product/service development imperative—after OTR, the firm is more aware of the need to develop products TODAY to

sell TOMORROW.


5.2. Product/service development

Fig. 4 shows the results of those companies who have completed the OTR exercise with particular

reference to using the process as a means of identifying new product and/or services to develop. All of

the companies who have completed the exercise have benefitted by identifying the products/services that

they need to develop in response to the business drivers impacting the company. This supports the

identified plan for companies to move up the value chain.

5.3. Technology management

The measurement of the use of OTR to provide a more structured approach to technology

management is shown in Fig. 5. From the results, it can be seen that virtually all the companies involved

Fig. 5. Since OTR, is the firm more likely to employ a more structured approach to technology development?

Fig. 6. Activity confidence and priority.


in the study have indicated that they would apply a more structured approach to technology management

by adopting the OTR process.

5.4. Activity confidence and priority

To understand the impact of the OTR process, the survey questioned the companies’ confidence in

undertaking various functional developments, such as product/service development, R&D work,

technology development and supply chain development. These support the development of the OTR

process into wider issues other than just technology. The companies were asked to rate the level of

confidence they had in undertaking development activities in the areas having completed the OTR

process. As can be seen from Fig. 6, the majority of the companies subsequently felt a high confidence

(F70%) in all areas. Interestingly, the only activity where there is any form of low confidence was in the

R&D development. Reasons for this could be the size of the organizations in which the process is being

carried out—many of the companies do not have any form of research and development activity, so it

would be a completely new area for them.

6. Conclusions and further work

The need to encourage companies to move up the value chain through advanced technologies,

processes and own product development was highlighted in the Singapore Economic Review Committee

Report in 2003. The introduction of roadmapping into the SME manufacturing sector in Singapore

aimed to improve the future outlook of these companies from the traditional 4–6 months to an average of

3–5 years. This encourages them to think and plan future developments now rather than act in an ad hoc

manner when it is frequently too late. However, in companies of this size, the blur between strategic

technology planning processes and traditional business strategy has resulted in an integrated approach

known as OTR. This approach takes a wider view of technology themes and formalizes the front end of

the Cambridge T-Plan process.

A pilot sample of 36 companies has successfully applied the process to achieve a first-cut Operation

and Technology Roadmap. A survey of the companies on completion of the roadmap confirms that they


are satisfied with the process and that they feel they have extended their planning horizon and are more

aware of the need to start developing new products and services today given the likely timescales

involved.

Although not yet quantified, practical field experience indicates that roadmapping delivers other

positive benefit to the SMEs. These benefits range from the SME staff being able to step aside from daily

pressures to plan with the assistance of a neutral facilitator, through to the integrated identification of

current operational problems and solution development. Anecdotal feedback from senior management of

participating SMEs, regular refers to softer benefits of roadmapping, such as the improved interfunc-

tional communication and the team spirit that the process has engendered.

Further work is ongoing to continue building the sample of surveyed companies and look at the

acceptance of OTR over time. Additionally, a strong link is suspected between roadmapping and

improved market orientation, which is a key aspect of small company development [9]. Work is under

way to understand and establish this connection.

References

[1] C.H. Willard, C. McClees, Motorola’s technology roadmap process, Research Management 30 (1987 Sept.–Oct.) 13–19

(No %).

[2] ITRS. International Roadmap for SemiConductors, 2003. (Available at http://public.itrs.net/).

[3] R. Phaal, Foresight Vehicle Technology Roadmap. Technology and Research Directions for Future Road Vehicles. (2002).

Available at: http://www.foresightvehicle.org.uk/info_/FV/init01_trm.pdf.

[4] T.A. Kappel, Perspectives on roadmaps: how organizations talk about the future, Journal of Product Innovation

Management 18 (2001) 39–50.

[5] G. DeGregrio, Technology management via a set of dynamically linked roadmaps, Proceedings of IEEE International

Engineering Management Conference (2000) 184–190.

[6] R. Phaal, C. Farrukh, D. Probert, T-Plan. The Fast Start to Technology Roadmapping. Planning Your Route to Success,

Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Mill Lane, Cambridge, UK, ISBN: 1-902546-09-01, 2001.

[7] R.E. Allbright, How to use roadmapping for global platform products, PDMAVisions XXVI (4) (2002 October) 19–22.

[8] J. Splunter, The Pursuit of Competitive Advantage: Value Manufacturing in Singapore, Economic Review Committee, Sub-

committee on Manufacturing, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore, 2002.

[9] C.H. Noble, R.K. Sinha, A. Kumar, Market orientation and alternative strategic orientations: a longitudinal assessment of

performance implications, Journal of Marketing 66 (2002 October) 25–39.

Chris Holmes received his Engineering Doctorate from Warwick University, UK, where his work was focused on lead-time

reduction in the product development process. He has carried out many industrial projects ranging from multinational aerospace

companies to SMEs. He has been working in Singapore for 6 years where his focus has been on technology management and

product development.

Michael Ferrill has a Masters Degree in Logistics and Transportation from Cranfield University and has worked extensively in

Supply Chain and Production Management roles within the military and the private sector. He moved to Singapore in 2000 to

manage the industrial application of various supply chain research projects and has now completed more than 20 roadmapping

exercises with Singapore SMEs.

http://www.public.itrs.net/

http://www.foresightvehicle.org.uk/info_/FV/init01_trm.pdf

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