26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

The digital transformation affects all parts of industrial value creation. Major levers are the collection and usage of digital data, the interlinking of formerly independent systems and a transition from traditional products to integrated product-service systems. It is characterized by significant changes of established business processes resulting in dynamic value creation networks. More than ever, innovations are a key factor for ensuring competitiveness within the global market. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with their characteristics are particularly affected. With very limited resources, they rely on needs-based innovations that are directly related to their core products. Because of this practice, they may overlook strategically important trends or even lose track of entire technological advancements. In this context, the transfer of technology and knowledge is a critical success factor. New technologies or methods developed by research institutions could provide long-term market advantages for SMEs. But despite a tremendous diversity of research results, the possibilities for tapping this source of valuable knowledge often remains unused. This mainly results from a gap between research and its commercialization in industrial applications – a phenomenon called “the valley of death”. Typical barriers are insufficient knowledge of available technologies, a lack of creativity within the identification of application potentials or simply missing resources. The digitalization even increases these barriers due to a growing interdisciplinarity of technologies. Furthermore, interconnected business processes and the demand for product service systems cause additional challenges. At present, there is no approach to solve this challenge sufficiently. Therefore, we present an integrated technology transfer concept, focusing the increase of the digital maturity of SMEs. The approach merges a (1) technology platform concept and a (2) multi-stage process model for the entire transfer process. It includes the initiation phase, the strategic planning and the implementation of a project-based transfer. We present (3) formats for the different stages in a structured manner. Our approach is verified by a case study: the leading-edge cluster “it’s OWL” which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. By transferring technologies and methods for advanced mechatronic systems within the scope of tailored transfer projects, the cluster follows an innovative path. The case study provides 170 projects established since 2014. Based on the platform with its bundled technologies, specific demands of SMEs are tackled. Furthermore, we present an (4) evaluation method which allows to validate the impact. To ensure an optimal effectiveness, the maturity level of SMEs should be developed in manageable steps. Thus, we present (5) methods to assess the current state. The findings serve as an input for the planning of the transfer process. The main result of our research is an innovative technology transfer concept, integrating the (1) active principle of a technology platform and a (2) multi-stage model to successfully overcome the valley of death. Apart from that, we developed (3), (4), (5) methods for the strategic managing of transfer activities. A key factor to support SMEs to exploit the technological opportunities is a high adaptability of the concept to the company-specific demands.