Industrial Engineering Chapter 9 Managing The Research Function Discussion Questions Figure Presents Generic Product Lifecycle

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Chapter 9

Managing the Research Function

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

9-1. Q: Figure 9-1 presents a generic product lifecycle flow. Draw a more detailed version and state

why the steps you have added are important.

9-2. Q: Use the full-range leadership model (Chapter 3) to outline the kind of leader who would be

suitable at each stage of Betz’s technology life cycle? Do they differ by stage? Why or why not?

9-3. Q: Summarize the principle contributions to U.S. R&D activity by each of (a) the federal

government; (b) industry; and (c) universities.

9-4. Q: Explain the roles of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in the U.S. economy? Is it easier to

see one of these than another? Why?

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9-5. Q: Discuss the relationship between the central corporate research laboratory and divisional

research in a corporation you know or have found described in the literature.

A: Student answers will vary. Two examples provided by students who had worked in both

corporate and division laboratories of corporations provide some background. At Hercules, the

corporate laboratory conducted research of a longer term nature, evaluating the logical

9-6. Q: Why are simple checklists used as a first screening of ideas in research projects by many

companies?

9-7. Q: As an R&D manager, what actions might you take or programs might you implement to assure

your organization got maximum benefit from patentable ideas?

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9-8. Q: How do the kinds of ideas best protected by patent differ from those best protected by keeping

them a trade secret?

A: First, it is hardly practical to try to maintain as a trade secret anything that may be discovered

by “reverse engineering” (analysis of a product that employs the secret), since the analyst can then

9-9. Q: What are some of the steps a manager can take to encourage creativity in his or her technical

employees?

9-10. Q: What is the role of mindset in creativity and driving innovation? According to KEEN, how

might this mindset be developed in engineering students?

9-11. Q: How would you try to evaluate the effectiveness of researchers if you were their research

manager?

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9-12. Q: What are some of the support services an organization might provide to make the work of

researchers and design engineers more effective?

9-13. Q: Discuss how the management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling relate

to research and development.

9-1. Q: An engineer proposes to buy a machine for $100,000 today that will save $60,000 in labor

costs at the end of each of the next two years. If the company demands a 15% return on

investments such as this, what is the net present worth (NPW) of the proposal? Should it be

funded?

9.2. Q: Your company has two alternative opportunities, each requiring your entire capital investment

budget of $325,000. Alternative A will return $390,000 at the end of one year; alternative B will

return $216,000 at the end of each of the first two years. Which (if either) alternative should you

recommend on the basis of (a) simple payback time?; (b) net present worth?

9-3. Q: If you have been exposed to capital investment analysis and/or engineering economy,

comment on the proposal to invest $1,000,000 in a new product now that is projected to generate

$200,000 profit at the end of each year for eight years, assuming that your company requires 15%

return on investment before taxes.

A: The present worth of a net profit of a dollar at the end of each of eight years at a 15% discount