Working with a global lab team in China

/ m a r c h + a p r i l 2 0 0 6 : / 18 " O ffshoring " has such negative connotations in the US that I prefer to describe what we do here at Honeywell Labs as " working with global laboratory teams. " There are three reasons for a technology company to start a global lab in a particular location. First, it might want to position a lab close to some special world-class talent in a particular technology. This usually means a university, from which they can draw both talent and technology. Hewlett-Packard comes to mind when I think about this model. Second, a lab might be placed in a country that represents a large future market, with the idea that the lab will infuse the needs and requirements of that market into the com-pany's overall research and development strategies. Think Nokia and Motorola. Third, there is tremendous pressure in the US to reduce the costs of research and development. Labs in developing countries are a way to reduce costs. So, why does Honeywell have a lab and human factors team in China? There is probably an element of each of these three factors. For some years, we have had a close relationship with Professor Kan Zhang's Engineering Psychology Lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His students have served as interns at our lab in Minneapolis. One intern returned to CAS to become a professor and continues to do human factors research with us. But it is our lab in Beijing that provides the day-today personal contact and support that makes this university connection an extremely productive working relationship. Our engineers actually work on site at CAS for some amount of their time, which benefits both organizations. Our China Lab certainly provides a window into the China market. They have worked with our Asia-Pacific marketing department on a number of successful projects aimed at understanding Chinese user experience and product needs. As members of our global project teams they provide insight about how a technology or product concept might be extended to reach an even bigger market, e.g., China. They broaden our thinking. Finally, I would be kidding everyone if I didn't admit that cost effectiveness was extremely important to me in assembling global project teams. I work in a business with relatively short research and development cycles. We can't take …