a sustainable-oriented technology - agtil

weakness analysis must be made, the evaluation criteria of which comprise economic, environmental
and social parameters, in order to analyze the firm’s competence base. Finally, the SWOT analysis
allows for the derivation of options for strategic action (Müller-Stewens and Lechner 2005),
which determine concrete search fields for the following phase of idea generation.
In the phase of idea generation many search field compliant technology ideas should be generated,
that take into account different internal and external sources of information. A structured suggestion
scheme for ideas can provide both economic and social value. The social value stems primarily
from involving employees in activity areas which are critical to corporate success, and therefore
this participation is able to increase employee motivation and commitment. The integration of
sustainably-minded lead experts (SLE) and sustainably-minded lead customers (SLU) ensures the
appropriate direction of the idea-finding process to sustainable-oriented needs on the one hand and
gives the opportunity to receive further information and advice for forward-looking solutions on the
other hand. Finally, the alternative ideas for new technologies are evaluated in interdisciplinary
teams by using checklists and value benefit analyses, which consider environmental and social aspects
in addition to economic ones, which in turn allow technology to be assessed at an early stage.
To estimate the potential of new technologies and the foundation of the Go/Kill decisions a Delphi
survey can be used, that should involve SLE. In Gate 1, the decision is made to transfer a technology
idea into a concrete TD project.
6.2 Technology Development
In the phase of project planning (Stage 1) it is necessary to create a general state of knowledge for
all parties involved in the development project, after the composition of the development team
(Slama et al. 2006). A catalogue of clear objectives, which defines both the efficiency of resources
and eco-efficiency as stated goals of the TD project, is an important planning and controlling instrument
during the entire process. Subsequently, an initial project plan is prepared, including a
project structure plan, a schedule plan, a resource and cost plan, and an organizational plan that sets
the roles, responsibilities and the rules. Since TD projects are usually based on a set of imperfect
information at project start, the project planning must be specified with increasing level of information
in the ongoing phases. Similarly, a process-integrated controlling must assess the development
activities and results during the whole development project, including environmental and social
parameters in addition to economic parameters. The resulting stakeholder analysis, generated during
schedule planning, shows the relationship of the project to the relevant stakeholders and identifies
potentials of conflicts and benefit potentials, as a basis for the successful management of relationship
with stakeholders in order to guarantee socio-efficiency (Schwalbe 2007; Nguyen et al. 2009;
Dyllick and Hockerts 2002).
In the subsequent phase - the technical concept (Stage 2) - a technical assessment of the focused
technology area is carried out and the possibilities of the TD are investigated in detail by a technology
assessment (Ludwig 1997). In this context, possible opportunities and risks of the new technology
will be acquired and evaluated, various solutions will be derived from the assessment and efforts
are being made to assemble existing competences of different specialist departments (Heubach
et al. 2008). The identification and specification of possible applications of the technology and the
determination of promising target segments rank among the most important main activities of this
phase.
In the phase of technology development (Stage 3) the technology concept is realized successively
and iteratively through tests and experiments. Simulation tools can be very useful for a resource-