A METHODOLOGY FOR EVALUATING TECHNOLOGY READINESS DURING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

In today's highly competitive global markets, where products are driven by rapidly advancing technologies and the ever-increasing expectations of the customer, robust methods for identifying new technologies and assessing their suitability and readiness within the context of the product development process are essential. Despite this fundamental requirement there are few supportive techniques available, with the exception of the nine Technology Readiness Levels developed by NASA. However, the generality and suitability of this approach is somewhat limited for the purpose of supporting product design and development. To address this, the existing NASA model has been critically appraised and its generality enhanced. The more general model has also been extended to consider the technology lifecycle (i.e. further refinement and development), multi-tech products and the associated criticality of each technology. The extended model of the Technology Readiness Level of the Product (TRLPROD) is then contextualized with respect to the product development process in order to provide a methodology for assessing the Product Readiness Levels (PRL). The paper describes the key stages of methodology development and illustrates the approach through consideration of the case of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD).