MATI Program Description

Purpose

In 1997, five US industrial firms established a consortium, named Management of Accelerated Technology Insertion (MATI), to explore tools and techniques for early identification and accelerated application of new and emerging technologies. The long-term intent of the Consortium was to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of United States companies by creating and leveraging a competency based on the management of technology.

Vision

Strategically driven and customer responsive technology planning, disciplined and integrated with other strategic business, market and product planning processes

Justification

This objective was a direct response to the challenges posed by the changing nature of global strategic competition that evolved in the last twenty years. Such competition and the concomitant emergence of the lean production model has generated pressures on both corporate and business unit R&D budgets and the resulting technologies available for deployment in both the defense and commercial sectors.

The MATI I Consortium

Formed under the auspices of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), the consortium consisted of:

General Motors Kodak Lucent Rockwell International Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp. (SWPC)

with IBD acting as a facilitating industry champion

MATI I Feasibility Study

Prior to the MATI I project, in 1996, a feasibility study of the Management of Technology had been completed by essentially the same firms. It confirmed that, in general, while the innovation and technology acquisition and adoption processes used in American industry had been documented, they remained inefficient and uncoordinated between the value chains.

MATI I Feasibility Study (cont.)

The inefficiencies severely affect innovation (in terms of the time from concept to commercialization), investment prioritization, product life cycle strategies and costs and return on technology investment.

MATI I Feasibility Study (cont.)

The feasibility study was consolidated with a proposal from another NCMS consortium to combine scenario planning and technology roadmapping thereby allowing contingency-specific technologies to be identified and transferred into product. The result was MATI, with the goal to identify, improve, deploy and disseminate best practice.

MATI I Success

The success of the initial MATI (I) program, as determined by the satisfaction of the participants, has led to the formation of a second program, MATI II. The MATI I participants have expressed that, while the hard deliverables which resulted from that program were of significant value to their companies, the greatest value was the knowledge creation processes that emerged from the MATI program.

MATI I Success (cont.) These processes were built on extensive participant

involvement that generated a robust information exchange and unusually beneficial benchmarking. The close working relationships amongst the participants included a unique pattern and level of industry-academic collaboration. The participants who wish to continue the MATI I process to explore and expand the range of issues and topics in greater depth are now being joined by a more extensive list of firms to launch MATI II.

MATI II Candidate Firms (as of 8/10/99)

Baxter International Coca-Cola Company Ford Motor Company IBD Inc. Kellogg Company Kraft Foods, Inc. Lucent Technologies McDonald’s Corporation

Motorola Redex Packaging Corporation Roche Pharmaceuticals Rockwell Automation Rohm & Haas Siemens-Westinghouse

Power Corporation United Technologies USG Corporation

The above firms are likely MATI members.There are a number of additional possible member firms.