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Technology Transfer…A National and Commercial Imperative

Technology Transfer…A National and Commercial Imperative. by (Visiting) Prof. Karl Reed,FACS, FIE-Aust., MSc,ARMIT School of Information Technology, Bond Uni. . Chair IEEE-Computer Society Tech. Council on Software Engineering

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Technology Transfer…A National and Commercial Imperative

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  1. Technology Transfer…A National and Commercial Imperative by (Visiting) Prof. Karl Reed,FACS, FIE-Aust., MSc,ARMIT School of Information Technology, Bond Uni. Chair IEEE-Computer Society Tech. Council on Software Engineering Governor, IEEE-Computer Society(1997-1999,2000-2002), Director, Computer Sys. & Software Engineering Board, ACS, Department of Computer Science & Computer Engineering, La Trobe University Hon. Visiting Professor, Middlesex University liberal use will be made of ideas from Jason Baragry, David Cleary and Jacob Cybulski “those who fail to study history are bound to repeat it”

  2. The optimists view of technology transfer..

  3. BUT FIRST… FOR TT TO WORK… • Conditions of Necessity Must Hold… • The creation of an irresistible desire for or belief in the value of some technology that leads to its adoption as a matter of urgency • Demonstration that new* technology can solve some commercial problem or improve some process • Conditions of Sufficiency… • Such a new * technology must actually exist, or be capable of being created. • A TT path or mechanism that is feasible must exist • * In this context, “new” means “..not currently exploitable by the transferee..”. The technology could be well-known

  4. Obviously we are.. We’re doing research aren’t we? You mean it may not be? If it were believed to be true, there’d be no real TT problem. Our Problem… • A.Are we making a real improvement? • B.How can we be sure this is true?

  5. Some Definitions.. • TECHNOLOGY AWARENESS… • To be aware of some aspect of the technology not currently being used, and to understand it well enough to decide to adopt or not to adopt. • TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER… • To achieve technology adoption to a level proficiency which permits use to produce products and services on a commercial basis, or their improvement…(this is our goal, as a transferer or transferee) • TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION • The process of adopting a technology which is being transferred ..(what we did as part of the TT process, if it worked..) • TECHNOLOGY AQUISITION • The process of re-discovering or re-inventing a technology for the purpose of having unimpeded rights to exploit it.. (We re-invent the wheel..)

  6. Some Definitions..(cont’d) • TECHNOLOGY RETENTION • The maintenance of some old technology for reasons of:- • Cultural significance, at a national level (cf. Sweden, and the Japanese National Living Treasures) • legacy technology and inventories needed to support significant obsolescent products or services

  7. National and Commercial Reasons for TT • NATIONAL… • Protect living standards by seizing a slice of a growing market, either new, established or old technology. • e.g. Korean semi-conductor, and auto, Japanese cameras, semi-conductor and auto • Ensure requisite technological diversity by preventing technological hegemony • e.g. European auto’s, ARM, telecom equipment, AIRBUS, vs dominance of Windows • COMMERCIAL.. • Protect profits and market share by seizing slice of a new market. • Increase profits by reducing costs • Create a new market • Ensure product differentiation • Ensure product similarity • Retain key skilled employees • Miss-judgment……

  8. 2. But First…Types of technology • We identify seven issues… • The technology :- • a. PRODUCT embodied by the complete product, • Its capabilities, in function, performance etc. • b. COMPONENTS, • the parts, materials, sub-systems • c. PRODUCTION used in its production, • tools, design techniques • d. SKILLS the terms of human skills used in production, • e. PROCESS of production • organisation of production, process

  9. But First…Types of technology..(cont’d) • f. ENABLING underlying technology which provides the basis for many economic areas, • Semi-conductors, metallurgy,optics, production engineering, metal-working, www…. • g. MARKETING philosophy and strategies , • h. PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

  10. AND NEXT Levels of technology • a. BLUE-SKY ahead of state of the art and practice, • Who knows if it really works, believed to be realisable • e.g. Cray and the planar transistor, modern cpu design • b.STATE OF THE ART, the leading edge of the most advanced.. • Only the most skilled and experienced organisations • c. STATE OF PRACTICE, BEST PRACTICE what successful organisations are doing… • d. ADVANCED future best practice, • e. ROUTINE any experienced group should be able to do this • f. BASIC any competent group should be able to do this

  11. 3. Barriers to TT…National Level • TRADE AND INVESTMENT POLICIES-NEGATIVE • Restrict Govt’s capacity to support local firms in technology acquisition. e.g. - US transnationals deemed Australian for grant, (export) subsidy, and Govt. purchasing preferences - “OFFSETT” policies which force TT not legal under WTO - Chinese Gov’t could not fund a Chinese company to develop a competitor to Windows under WTO • SECURITY AND DEFENCE AGREEMENTS • US laws prevent encryption technology (and other technology) from being transferred or developed. E.G. Japanese machine tools and submarine propellors RESULTS… • Limitation of technological diversity • Difficult to “grow” an Ericsson or LG in Australia

  12. 3. Barriers to TT…Commercial • ACQUISTION COST • Licensing and purchase costs may be large. • ADOPTION COSTS • Training costs, • Learning curve costs • LOST OPPORTUNITY COSTS.. • What we would have earned if we weren’t • doing this.. • Resource-confiscation costs • ROI REQUIREMENT • Will we ever recover our net investment over time? • Can we calculate the investment up front? • Ammortisation of existing investments/ • inventories? • RESOURCE REQUISITIONING • Impact of allocating productive resources • to a new venture..

  13. A Tech-Transfer Model NOT THAT SIMPLE!

  14. 4. Case Studies… The ANSEI Proposal • DEVELOPED A PROPOSAL SUPPORTED BYS/W COMPANIES-RESEACH --> INDUSTRY • APPROACH TAKEN.. • Show respect for companies and their achievements • Show industry knowledge • Formulate technico-commercial drivers, technical issues related to commercial problems • Show highly leveraged returns • RESULTS… • Great proposal, interdicted by the SEA initiative • Enthusiasm from industry • But, not from Vic government… • THE INDUSTRY WE WERE DEALING WITH…

  15. Remember Our Problem… A.Are we making a real improvement? B. How can we be sure this is true? C. SE Researchers talk down to industry!

  16. Our Knowledge of Industry The Australian Example.. THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY OF THE LATE 1960'S AND EARLY 1970'S WAS… a) PACKAGE (and hence re-use) ORIENTED A wide range of packaged software on 16 bit and mainframes was produced. E.G. Accounting, payroll, engineering design, manufacturing, insurance, etc. b) KNEW ABOUT PORTABILITY… Many of these were transported between different OS and machines. One suite of packages in assembler (50klocs) was "ported" to at least 6 different systems c) RECOGNISED THE RE-USE OF SKILLS , IDEAS AND DESIGN… The concept of "the continuity of experience" syndrome, the human "experience factory". FORMAL PROCESS MODELS DO NOT APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT

  17. Australia (cont’d) THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY BY THE MID 1980'S WAS…(cont'd) a) A HIGH-LEVEL TOOL DEVELOPER Developed "4GL's" and APPLICATION GENERATORS Both HP and DataGeneral used Australian products for their early Application Generators The product Lansa (ASPECT) is one of three Application Generators for the S/38 (now AS/400) b) PRODUCING LARGE-SCALE MAINFRAME PACKAGES & SYSTEMS… Major international supplier of insurance s/w, Major developer of large-scale s/w for Govt. and Industry. c) UNDERSTOOD PROTOTYPING CDA used SNOBOL in the mid-1970's for protoyping commercial systems.

  18. Australia (cont’d) BY THE LATE 1980'S EARLY 1990'S WAS… a) PRODUCING OO LANGUAGES AND TOOLS… The language OCHRE… b) UNDERTAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE STUDIES… Productivity studies based on function points (Aust. Software Metrics Assoc.) SPICE (Software Quality Association/ACS) c) DEVELOPING S/W QUALITY STDS AND CERTIFICATION… AS3563, S/W Assurance Standard being mandated by Govt. Software Quality Institute lead by Geoff Dromey at Griffith Univ. d) OTHER THINGS… F-P estimating tools, OO based specialists consultancies…commercial use of Formal Methods on small scale e) TTM competency… F-P estimating tools, OO based specialists consultancies…commercial use of Formal Methods on small scale

  19. THE HISTORY…(cont'd) THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY'S WEAKNESSES… a) LIMITED INTERACTION WITH RESEARCH COMMUNITY… b) JEALOUS AND SECRETIVE ABOUT DEVELOPMENT METHODS c) ABSENCE OF TARGETED RESEARCH CENTRES d) NEEDED GREATER EMPHASIS ON WINDOWS & MacIntosh S/W THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY'S ASSETS… a) Good supply of well trained graduates in CS and EDP More than 14 000 p.a.! (now 7 SE degrees in Australia) b) Strong managerial/ technical culture of package and product development

  20. Australia (cont’d) THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY's PARAMETERS… TOTAL SALES…US$1.8B S/W PRODUCT @ 50% of total DOMESTIC SHARE OF PRODUCT @ 40% EXPORTS US$500M (1993 FIGURES) by comparison, the Japanese s/w industry has less than 15% of T.O. in s/w product. There are 40 Australian S/W companies selling product in Japan

  21. Be able to show ROI after adoption costs (equipment + training) and productivity losses due to learning curves after adoption. (improved profit) Show resolution of competitive advantage problems (beat off competitors, maintain market share) Show new market opportunities due to new products/services Approaching Software Developers… Technico-Commercial Drivers… the linkage • The goal is to find a high-level, one-line statement of pressing commercial issue that maps directly on to a “technology acquisition” (research) agenda (map idea to common concept base accessible to highest management) Show an economic benefit

  22. Research-Commercial Mapping… Defining Relevance Typical SE Research Agenda Australia ~ 1997 Technico-commercial Drivers 1.Re-engineering and Empirical Studies of s/w Practice, 2.Tools and Methodologies, and Design Representation, 3. Re-Use, 4. Evolving Software, 6. Object Oriented Dev. 7. Product Quality Measurement 8. Time-to-Market 9. Testing ¶ Impact of developments in run-time platforms ¶ Low-cost and evolving software ¶ User Interface Development ¶ Software Productivity ¶ Performance Predictability ¶ Software Product Quality Certification ¶ Time to Market ¶

  23. The ANSEI Technico-Comercial Driver to Research agenda mapping

  24. Technology Transfer Mechanisms • “Champions” in the organisations targetted.. Need to be involved by the researchers • Disclosure, workshops, training, publications, technical newspapers • Professional associations SIG’s and meetings • Wining and dinning managers • Joint trials of technology, may need to be funded by research centre…(various models, including fully profitable contracts.. Must counter lost opportunity cost problem) • “Exemplar” projects by the research centre, creating “technology pull” • Incremental technologies may be easier to adopt

  25. Technology Transfer Mechanisms(cont’d) • NIH has cultural, economic and technical basis.. • (It took ~ 5 years for Ada/Clean-room/OO to show an overall cost benefit cf Fortran at NASA/SEL) • 50% productivity gain needed for break-even in one learning curve time..

  26. PRESENTING A RESEARCH PROGRAM AS A TT OPPORTUNITY § ASSUME WE HAVE AN AGENDA IN RE-ENGINEERING.. HOW COULD WE PRESENT THIS TO A PROSPECTIVE PARTNER?

  27. What if we had a large re-engineering project? component semantics and concept extraction.. The role of re-engineering.. S/W Archaeology...  program is a model of some real world process  exactly what “concepts” are represented in terms of non-procedure replicated code fragments?  What are their semantics? -What impact do these have on program composition?  How do these relate to different problems in the same domain? ..different problems in different domains?  How are components modified in practice and what is the outcome?

  28. The role of re-engineering.. S/W Archaeology and S/W Architecture....  recovery of standard architectures  identification of s/w construction practices, e.g. shifts from one programming style to another  development of maintainability and evolvability classifications for -- § design methodologies § architectural styles  development of maintainability and evolvability classifications for architectural styles

  29. component semantics and concept extraction.. The role of re-engineering.. Architecture issues for the S/W Archaeologist  identification of design approaches which ensure that conceptual architectures are transferred to implementation  identification of standard mappings from conceptual to actual architectures which occur using different design approaches on different problems

  30. A National Example of Tech. Acq. • Korea’s Semiconductor Industry • a. ~1974, packaging chips in epoxy for US companies • Early 1980’s government policies to build a SC industry.. • ~ 1986 first 256k dram • mid 1990’s aggressive transnationals in SC, with plants in UK etc. • Enabling techs.. Semiconductor physics and chemistry

  31. Appropriate Technologies the wave followers • a. Korean-Malaysian (and originally Japanese, Swedish) automobile manufacturers started with “old” technology. • Skill and labour-intensive industries may not need the latest plant etc. • Mass products for 2/3 of the world’s population must be cheap.. Where is the us$300 fully functional PC? • How many gates are needed in a controller for white goods? (maybe this can be achieved with a fab-plant two generations old?) • Environmentally sound housing may mean going back to adobe construction. • AND SO ON….

  32. CONCLUSIONS • a. TT IS NOT EASY….. • HOWEVER, IT IS OF NATIONAL AND COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE. • TT FROM RESEARCH INSTITUTES TO INDUSTRY MUST RECOGNUSE COMMERCIAL REALITIES • TT DOES NOT NEED TO FOCUS ON THE BLEEDING EDGE • BUT, IT IS NOT EASY!

  33. Tak Ska du har…

  34. Stages of SE... Immature methodologies, Fortran, Cobol, Assembler-70’s,telephone systems Customer req dominate,ROI mandatory Cottage industry, but well intentioned Systems Analysis and Design methodologies 70’s-80’s Mature? Body of Knowledge but no universal success Determinate, quality driven, high reliability, business model oriented Formal Methods, info. Hiding, architecture, strong typing, CASE,RE,SCS,formalised testing, banking networks,internet,PC-OS, OO,CMM,Process Modelling,re-use, cots,dig.flight control systems,EFTPOS Cottage industry, reversion to the old-days Unreliable, technology history free, ROI independent-business model? s/w surprises Large-scale s/w, comsumer goods,engine management systems, ABS time to market, extreme programming, web systems, free-ware, 94-00’s

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