Foresight-Hindsight in Materials Science and Engineering _Project Portfolio Management

Following my last post “ Selection Criteria for Research Project Funding,” 8 Sept. 2011, let us continue our “Foresight –Hindsight” (marketing) exercise using a short presentation using a modified BCG matrix (4 squares)or  GE/McKinsey matrix(9 squares) chart

The chart which I wish to draw to the attention of my metallurgical and materials scientist friends,  members of  The Institute was originally published in Materials World    and archived in my personal files for more than a decade.  Cf. Image 1 below.   It is a nine square GE/McKinsey matrix.

-Areas of Attractiveness are represented by 3 colums- (vertical axis):  1. Emerging,2. Intermediate and 3. Key priority areas, of increasing attractiveness 1 to 3.

-Areas of Feasibility are represented by position on the horizontal axis :  increasing feasibility from left to right.

Within this matrix the upper most right hand square is magnified and again divided into another 9 square matrix, “Attractiveness versus Feasibility”.  Such a process both shows how this approach can be usefully refined while pragmatically bringing focus to the necessary couple, Key Priorities which are Feasible.  Clear objectives can be given and so motivation increased.  The challenges of the research for excellence are respected and the likelihood of impact in appropriate areas increased.

The presentation allows the representation of 9 blocks IE GE/McKinsey presentation.

The arc through the intermediate and emerging  themes draws attention to the fact that the most-attractive and desireable does not always correspond to the most feasible.

Many of the themes presented in the previous post "Selection Criteria for Research Funding" EPSRC 2010 - 2013 have previously figured in the BCG - GE/McKinsey Matrix approach established at least a decade earlier (Image 1) An attempt to show this continuing preoccupation with certain themes is shown in the table below in bold characters. One reason for this is the wide nature of themes cf previous post headings:

THREE WIDE FOCUS THEMES TO IMPACT UPON.

THREE STRATEGIC GOALS.

SIX GLOBAL RESEARCH CHALLENGES to be ADDRESSED

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KEY PRIORITY AREAS	Health & Life Style	Optical Tech.	Genetic & Biomolecular Eng., Bioinformatics, Communication with machines, Telerepresentation/ multimedia, Sensors & sensory information processing, Software Eng., Security & privacy tech
INTER- MEDIATE AREAS	Risk assessment & management, Design & Systems Integration, Chemical & Biological Synthesis,	Information Management, Modelling & Simulation, Catalysis, Work place & Home.	Management & Business                                    Process Eng.,   Environmentally     sustainable tech.
EMERGING AREAS	Demographic change, clean processing tech, Energy Tech, LCA,  Automation.		Biomaterials, Materials Process & Control, Materials processing tech.

                                 Feasibility---------------------->

RELATED POSTS
1. Selection Criteria for Research Project Funding 8 Sept. 20112..
2.Critical Minerals and Metals Defined  12 April 2011.

REFERENCES – EBOOKS on Forsight and Portfolio Management

1.      GE/McKinsey matrix(9 squares) chart
2. Portfolio Management: Fundamental for New Product Success  [pdf]

by Dr. Robert G. Cooper, Dr. Scott J. Edgett and Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt,
Reference Paper #12

Compliments of: Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute Inc

3. Idea Evaluation [pdf]

4. Foresight Projects are in-depth studies examining major issues 20-80 years in the future.

5. Selection of research priorities – method of critical technologies by Karel Klusacek [pdf]
Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences CR Rozvojova 135, 165 02 Prague 6, Czech Republic

6. Crafting a methodology for formation of R and D strategy based on evolutionary epistemology: case study of Iran power industry [pdf]

7. Priority Systems: Technical Terms Used in Project Portfolio Management

8. MIND TOOLS

9. Stakeholder Identification and Analysis Techniques, John M. Bryson, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 245 Humphrey Center, University of Minnesota [pdf].

NB WARNING TO THE R&D Communities

OUTSOURCING !!!

Protect your laptop - Foresight beats Hindsight

Theft
My Packard Bell Easy Note 17" PC;Serial N° LXB550X0019201B89A 1601 with all website passwords was stolen Monday 27 Sept 2010 from the car I was driving while parked in Rueil-Malmaison (Paris area) lots of change to be managed. Readers take care-Either no valuables in your car or keep it in your own view (best) Spy Cameras in public car parks ?

Once bitten (badly) doubly twice (quadruply) shy - and with your help getting slyer.

Advanced, precautionary protection tips that I have learned of since:
1. Open source tracing lost or stolen lap-tops is due to Adeona

2. A french source unfortunately Packard Bell do not figure in their list.

At the moment I have been totally unable to contact Packard Bell for their advice on Lap-top tracking...

As though fate played a foul joke on me: The Town Mayor of Rueil-Malmaison the "bien-nommé" is M. Patrick Ollier who is the husband of current French Minister for Defense Mme Michèle Alliot-Marie. Pity there were not any military around at the time.

I would gladly share this "poor" joke with the local and national Top-Management.

It appears that their are many cases of Lap-top theft - lets lend a hand to putting a stop to such practice & practise.
Your comments, hints, suggestions more than welcome.

Cheers and good luck all,

This-Above-All: Climate Studies-Small Steps Toward Rules for Geoengineering following 'Asilomar 2' Conference

This-Above-All: Climate Studies-Small Steps Toward Rules for Geoengineering following 'Asilomar 2' Conference

Create the Future_Design Contest 2010 from COMSOL Start date 01 March 2010.

This appears to be an interesting, helpful and rewarding approach to innovation from one of the leaders in commercial multiphysics modelling.

Comsol also provides a rich selection of freely available resource items, Conference reports on CD, white papers etc. which reminds me, I must pick-up the lastest. CD.

Should readers require a network partner, please check my blog posts for senior experience and multidisciplinary areas of competence.

en référence à : Create the Future Design Contest ::Create the Future (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

LCA Analysis, Introduction Environment and Sustainability Tool

In my previous post I listed 7 tips from a 1 week course outline which finishes today " Materials Sustainability and The Environment - A Materials for Industry Short Course.

Tip N° 3 refers to the use of life cycle assessment (LCA ) principles as a basis for environmental auditing, to calculate an “index of merit” for waste management options.

It goes without saying that these concepts and software assisted tools will be an increasingly indispensable part of any serious materials scientist and engineer. Indeed this approach is one of the themes which I planned to develop within my still very young, new, management methods and foresight blog "This-Above-All" cf. link on side bar menu. LCA is of course very much a materials management issue. It spans the whole "cradle to grave" cycle and "resuscitation-recycle" "cradle to grace?"

For those of you unable to attend the course there is an excellent, clear introduction to the subject -LCA on the European Union JRC Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability.

We shall have amply reasons to return to this topic, it's industrial partners as well as the toolboxes developed and to be developed.

Nine Top Search Tips for Research and Innovation Ideas on the European Union (EU) Framework Programme 7 (FP7)

It is not always easy to know where to look in the huge European Research and Innovation data base for project ideas and possible collaborations, hence the following guide from my recent experience. (LINK)

I know that all of my colleagues in materials science, physics, chemistry and engineering... are a very intelligent lot but like most highly solicited professionals, short for time (and "time is money").

If the above link is sufficient for some, it many not be sufficient for all?

To do you and the EU - Cordis web site justice, I promise to post on rapid search tips specifically for the hard pressed Materials Scientist and Engineer and perhaps also to our Journalist friends who need breaking news information in the advanced materials and processes revival. From the early days of the first highly successful, peaceful re-structuring of the sensitive EU Coal Iron and Steel Economic Community, ERA. much may be learned in the present recessionary circumstances. Shake your blue's away! Progress in the advanced materials and processes has not only opened vast new and fabulous fields for in scientific and technological development but has also encouraged vigorous competition for new solutions to life saving themes. Indeed a renewed interest for traditional mature technological advances such as coal and steel, cement and clay can be seen in attempts to face the colossal energy and climate change challenges. Similarly a reappraisal of wood and forestry management must be put firmly on the global the agenda. New bio-materials, synthetic and natural and mans genius in bio-mimicry will spur the international community to bigger and better things!

Up for review - Top Ten Materials bookmarked to be at the forefront of Technology - Ten Years On

Readers are cordially invited to contribute - news of formal procedures and classical approaches, informal one's to my proposed review process 2008-2009. Hints and kick-off to "the new season provided below. Read on.

Directly linked to my previous post, I have enumerated the 10 Material Fields here:

1-Photonic materials allow light to be transmitted through solids and will therefore be able transmit information at very high speeds. Offering immense data-storage capabilities, they are certain to be important tools over the next hundred years, which has been hailed as the century of information technology.
2 -New types of magnetic materials will allow increased amounts of information to be stored. This is already one of the main areas of research in materials science.
3-Smart materials, which can react to outside stimuli, are already part of many of the important components found in the appliances used in daily life.
4 -Biomaterials have inspired materials scientists to study and copy nature's machinery. Together with biologists, they have developed biomaterials using well defined proteins under specific environmental conditions. Materials scientists are also looking at ways to use DNA to find new ways of storing information.
5 -Biomedical materials have many important practical applications, serving, for example, as implants in the human body. They need to be compatible with human tissue, and one day could even function as spare parts for the human body.
6 -Materials that can generate clean energy and store energy without polluting the environment could solve one of the biggest challenges of the next century - the provision of plentiful amounts of clean energy for the Earth's ever-increasing population.
7 -Porous materials with pores from a few atoms in size to thousands of atomic diameters act like sieves that can be used to select different compounds. They could be important for synthesizing other materials.
8 -Diamond and other hard materials can be used as very thin surface layers to toughen materials, such as industrial tools.
9 -Polymers that can be made by chain reaction allow scientists to develop materials with specific molecular architectures.
10 -Surface and interface science will be critical in the development of new materials. Techniques need to be developed that allow atoms to be imaged either directly on the surfaces of materials or with advanced electron microscopy.

Here I shall associate author P. Ball and 1998 reviewer Manfred Rühle. I have kicked-off, rapidly, a first impressions-"off-the cuff" 2008 review from memory as a professional avid Reader in and of the field(s) cf [JA]. Some of their original conclusions from the 1998 "foresight" exercise are as follows:

1 "Enormous progress that has been made over the past 20 years in these ten areas in an interesting and entertaining way. (P.Ball) [ Ball is Editor for the the Journal Nature. This is certainly true, ably assisted by scientific journalists and ever improving University and R&D communications, Science and Society initiatives, now supported throughout the EU. - JA]

2 "Engineers cannot simply pick whatever material they need from the shelf. The 21st century still holds many challenges for materials science. (Manfred Rühle) [They certainly try as far as possible - fortunately the "Materials Science Revival" brings it's load of complexities - JA]

3. Information technology and energy technology - two key areas over the next hundred years - will demand materials with ever more specific properties at ever smaller scales. (Manfred Rühle - taking little or no risks of being reviewed-current limits for biomedical-progress? despite unforeseen findings from to-day's CERN Big Collider start-up)[comment JA]

4. The nanoscale and the sub-nanoscale will probably be the most important dimensions in the future, although this may well lead to a revitalization of more traditional fields, such as friction, wear and corrosion. After all, advanced wear-free materials will be of great interest in these applications. (Manfred Rühle )

[4 bis Rapid review 2008.

Close to my own traditional fields I can honestly say that many signs of this "Materials Science & Engineering Revival are manifest, not only in response to the much over exaggerated claims made on each new finding especially in the nanotech field. Bio-medical fields have long test periods. Although the field is one of the most innovative, perhaps more action is required to reduce "time to market." but this is pure speculation on my part. (JA.)]

5. Materials scientists may also start to become interested in waste disposal and recycling. (Manfred Rühle) [Apparently climate change's dire warnings were not well known in the University labs and R&D in 1998- hard to swallow!-little communication between departments? - Normally R&D - plant & industrial materials scientist are highly aware of value lost through waste!- Ball editor of Nature and free-lance writer is well aware of these issues, in his No. 6 item "Clean abundant energy materials" from his Top-Materials List above and it's corollary Waste dare I say energy from waste roughly in the same proportion to our capacity to generate such material. My own Institute of Materials - Materials World, (free online) publishes regularly on progress in this from all areas of materials. Of course a reviewer is allowed only a short space compared to the author of a book- JA ]

[If the saying "Where there's muck there's money" remains true and is to a large extent: Warren Buffet, investor or again two biggest, global, firms in Water management are French and are expanding rapidly in waste management-euphemistically entitled "environmental services" -JA.]

6. The materials that Ball describes are all advanced - some, indeed, are quite exotic. They will provide challenges that are at the cutting-edge of research. [There is a continuous balance to be sought between the this classical approach and the more Northern UK - Science & Engineering school's epitomised by such motto's as "A place of useful learning" whose roots are in deprived areas. Are the latter better equipped to understand and provide answers for the 4/5 th of world markets needs or are their other hidden non-scientific hurdles in the way? - Thanking Nature in passing, for their Free, Multilingual, Open Journal SciDev.com - JA].

7. A by-product of this cutting-edge research underlined previously No6. will be the discovery of processes that are also relevant to more conventional materials. cf. Tradition material revival example from Cambridge, UK's, Bhadeshia cf my previous post-on HKDH Bhadeshia "Big Chunks of Nano-Steel vs Carbon Nanotubes & Materials Modelling.

NB. TBD-To be Done - a list of classical, traditional and new scientific journals may help provide answers to such a review call.

Sources: Based on P. Ball's book published in 1997 reviewed in 1998. (1) Made to Measure: New Materials for the 21st Century, by Philip Ball, 1997 Princeton University Press 480pp. (2) Manfred Rühle reviewed P. Ball's book for physicsworld Manfred Rühle reviewed P. Ball's book for physicsworld, IOP-Inst. of Physics UK. M. Rühle is director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, Stuttgart, Germany