Roadmapping Integrates Business and Technology: At Philips Electronics, Roadmapping May Be Applied to Systems, to a Product Range, to Individual Projects, to Components, or to Production Processes

The electronics business environment, in which Philips Electronics is active, is characterized by ever-more-demanding customers, increasingly shorter product life cycles and fast-changing technologies. This has a significant impact on the product creation process because current management practices often fail to recognize far enough in advance which new products and technologies should be available and when. Instead of planning-oriented product development activities, a long-term view is required, based on close cooperation among all disciplines. Roadmapping is one of the improvement actions that was initiated to meet these demands. As I shall explain, roadmapping was chosen in order to develop a stronger awareness of how to serve important markets with the right products at the right time and to improve the cross-functional processes required for new product creation. The roadmapping approach described in this article is based upon the limited information available (1) and experience elsewhere in technology management (2). This approach is characterized by the integration of technology, product and market/application, paying due attention to how requirements and opportunities change over time. "Product" in this article means any component, product, system or production process. At the same time, the importance of process aspects such as multidisciplinary team building and cross-functional cooperation are emphasized. Roadmapping stimulates organizational learning through the encouragement of openness and ways of doing things better. It also supports people at all levels in achieving milestones and becoming committed to their role in the overall process. The Roadmapping Concept In simple terms, roadmapping is a process that contributes to the integration of business and technology and to the definition of technology strategy by displaying the interaction between products and technologies over time, taking into account both short- and long-term product and technology aspects. The principle of a product-technology roadmap is illustrated in Figure 1. The products A, B, ... and the technologies aa, pp, ... required to develop and produce these products are shown for roughly five years ahead. Products A3, A4, ... and technologies bb, qq, ... evolve from the earlier products A 1, A2, ... and technologies aa, pp, respectively. Note that technology qq "kills" technology bb. Product-technology roadmaps require a good understanding of markets and applications in order to define the products in terms of customer requirements. From these requirements, the technical product functions are determined, and then the technologies needed to realize these functions. All these activities help to improve, in particular, the front end of the product creation process (the concept and idea phase) by providing better information. The RD the roadmapping process depends strongly on vision-building. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] Roadmapping can be applied to systems, to a product range or specific products, to components, or to production-related processes. …