Technology center

Both innovative technologies and products affect companies in all sectors of industry and transform existing markets and value chains. Thus, manufacturing companies are constantly confronted with the risk of being disrupted by market entrants. In this case, the risk from the competition is not limited to new technologies or products, but also to a significant reduction in their production costs. In addition to the introduced risks based on competitors’ innovative solutions, the targeted promotion and development of own innovations in return offers a wide variety of opportunities for the own company.

Recognize opportunities and act quickly

A requirement for the development of innovative solutions is the early identification of both technological as well as market opportunities and risks. If these are identified and appropriately evaluated, it is important to quickly and purposefully implement these ideas in order to gain a lead. At this, a challenge that companies often face is the synchronization between the corporate departments marketing, R&D and production. However, synchronizing those departments is essential, for instance, to hit the market quickly and cost-effectively with high-quality products.

Securing your future by new technologies

Closing the gap between marketing, R&D and production requires a unit that addresses the needs of these stakeholders. For this, there are usually three primary paths. On the one hand, for new products the corresponding production technologies and processes need to be developed in order to enable a calm ramp-up in the factories. On the other hand, it is important to increase the efficiency of production for existing products in order to reduce costs. Last but not least, the focus needs to be on the targeted development and adaptation of manufacturing and process technologies from other industries in order to enable the development of new products and product features in R&D.

Our approach

Our approach to the conception and design of a technology center is individually adapted to each company. The procedure for setting up a technology center is roughly divided into two phases. The first phase focuses on the concept of the technology center with the aim of defining the relevant fields of activity, deriving resource requirements as well as room concepts, and determining the required effort. These results are based on interviews with key stakeholders, benchmarking and technology studies, and the development of case studies. In the second phase, a detailed design of the technology center will be developed. At this, the derivation of the technology strategy based on a core competence analysis as well as the alignment of the technology intelligence activities can be focused for instance.

Like other manufacturing companies before - from medium-sized companies to diversified companies - Fraunhofer IPT also supports your company in planning and designing a technology center in order to face trends of the future and to be ahead of the competition.

Our services

  • Identification of possible fields of action of your technology center
  • Identification of relevant future technologies for your technology center
  • Derivation of activity scopes as well as technology and resource requirements
  • Determination of area requirements, development of a 3D-layout and assessment of investment and operating costs
  • Definition of roles, responsibilities and processes
  • Derivation of the strategic orientation based on a core competence analysis
  • Development of a project prioritization logic
  • Structure and alignment of the technology intelligence