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The Market Pull Versus Technology Push Continuum Of ...

Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education Session 2793 The Market Pull Versus Technology Push Continuum of Engineering Education Jon C. Dixon University of St. Thomas BFGoodrich Aerospace Abstract Technologists, engineers, marketing agents and business managers are well acquainted with the Technology push Versus Market pull Continuum of product development. The Market pull approach attempts to provide products the Market demands. The Technology push approach attempts to interest the Market in new products based on new solutions. Asking industry what it is thinking about its future needs for life-long learning, and what academia should do about it represents intention by academia to emphasize a Market pull course of action with industry as customer. The academic institution desires to be of great help to local and regional industry by teaching students skills of immediate and tangible use by industry.

A consumer may be defined as the person (or group of persons) who puts the product (or service) into place for users. The purchasing group that decided what copiers to purchase or lease for a company, based on expected, collective, intended usage, and after comparing offerings, is the consumer .

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1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education Session 2793 The Market Pull Versus Technology Push Continuum of Engineering Education Jon C. Dixon University of St. Thomas BFGoodrich Aerospace Abstract Technologists, engineers, marketing agents and business managers are well acquainted with the Technology push Versus Market pull Continuum of product development. The Market pull approach attempts to provide products the Market demands. The Technology push approach attempts to interest the Market in new products based on new solutions. Asking industry what it is thinking about its future needs for life-long learning, and what academia should do about it represents intention by academia to emphasize a Market pull course of action with industry as customer. The academic institution desires to be of great help to local and regional industry by teaching students skills of immediate and tangible use by industry.

2 Industry prospers, economies are fortified, academia has fulfilled its role, and America is strengthened. The antithetical method is often negatively viewed as too theoretical or ivory tower in approach. While useful to some degree, the Market pull approach is necessarily reactionary, shortsighted, and works not to strengthen America s economy but to weaken it. An academic Market pull approach shortchanges academia s more important students, and America at large. It subjugates imaginative, creative leadership skills to in the box thinking. The approach satisfies short-term industry needs while defocusing the leadership crisis in American industry. Consideration of an advance along the Continuum from Market pull dominance more towards Technology push thinking is proposed. The question is rephrased as What should tomorrow s industrial leaders be learning today? I. Introduction The future of American industry depends on the directions set by today s engineering students.

3 Whether these students become followers or leaders is largely up to them. But that outcome is strongly dependent upon how their academic institutions influence them today. I submit most urgently that academia s collective charter is to make certain these Page of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education students do not look back and understand their academies decided how to educate them by consulting micro-managed, closed system companies whose sole interests were profit. Too heavy a reliance on industry input into engineering curricula can not improve engineering education. Such input will not encourage academia to nurture open systems leaders with critical thinking skills. Today s industry does not provide fertile soil for such creative individuals. Overemphasis on industry input will instead assure the production of interchangeable cogs called engineers whose lot in life will be working on poor products for micro-managers intent on profit at all costs.

4 I submit American industry today is in crisis. Everywhere we turn we witness claptrap products, a worsening of the American standard of living, reductions in employee benefits, corporate imperialism and ravenous thirst for profit above all else. This misguided and dangerous focus of American industry will, in the next two decades, be either affirmed or rejected by today s engineering students. There is too much at stake to ask the managers of today s industry what tomorrow s leaders should be learning. If we are to wonder what and whom to ask about our engineering curricula, we should ask the question What should tomorrow s industrial leaders be learning today? We must ask this question of ourselves as educators. II. Defining the Market Pull Versus Technology Push Continuum One of industry s (and academia s) greatest challenges is to develop products customers want and will purchase. There exists a fine balance between providing just what the customer is known to want and what the producer believes is a far superior solution set.

5 This balance represents a Continuum , with development approaches known as Market pull Versus Technology push respectively. Market pull is a scenario in which the Market demands a product (or service) type, or defines a problem, and producers respond by producing and delivering that product. Market desire is well calculated. The producer is in the business of delivering products intended to fill a Market -defined niche. In short, Market pull product development is based on a perception of what products or services the customer wants, with the customer having a large say in the direction of product development. The customer defines the solution and educates the producer. Technology push , in juxtaposition, is the scenario in which the producer, seeing an advantage to the consumer that the consumer does not see, creates a product type and also the demand for that product type. The producer is in the business of fulfilling functions for the consumer, and uses unique methods, Technology or approaches to better fulfill the function in ways even the consumer may not initially recognize.

6 The producer carefully learns and understands about customers problems. In short, Technology push product development is based on the belief that the supplier recognizes a Market need even before the Market does. (By Technology push I do not mean proffering products simply because Page of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education the Technology or method are capable of it. I do mean fulfilling functions better than do any other current methods.) The producer ultimately educates the customer. To further our definition, it should be noted that there exists a difference between product and function . A product is a specific physical embodiment or service that fulfills some function. The function is defined as that set of work requirements the product or service must perform for the customer. An automobile tire is a product. Its function is to transmit forces between the automobile and the pavement.

7 Often more than one product may fulfill the same function. Bias ply and radial ply tires both serve this function, albeit the latter better than the former. The function of removing the cork from a wine bottle may be achieved by nearly countless methods and designs, ranging from the traditional corkscrew to air injection devices. Each represents a different product fulfilling a single function. What is critical to customers is function. Products and services are developed most often somewhere between the extreme cases of pure Market pull or pure Technology push. Figure 1 illustrates the Continuum . C A) Market pull B) Technology push Figure 1. The Market pull Versus Technology push Continuum . In Figure 1, A) represents an extreme Market pull approach to satisfying customers. B) represents the extreme Technology push approach.

8 Products assume a location on the Continuum depending upon the Market approach methodology used to create the product. Regions A) and B) represent extreme positions. The region denoted C) illustrates a bandwidth approach. This bandwidth may move left or right, be tighter or narrow for any given producer. Product offerings may be generally placed along the bandwidth, some representing more Market pull emphasis, others more Technology push. The center of region C) represents an average of the producer s offerings, and reflects its general philosophy towards new product development. The width of the band represents the producer s ability, willingness, or more likely culture, to approach new product development from different perspectives along the Continuum . The width of the band also represents a certain inherent tension between the appeal of the two approaches. In this illustration, the more commonly held approach favoring the Market pull end of the product development spectrum is illustrated.

9 Both ends of this spectrum are represented by characteristic ways of thinking and approaches to the Market . These may be illustrated as in Chart 1. Page of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education Chart 1. Market Pull Technology Push Business decisions Safe Risky Risk Low to moderate Moderate to high R&D costs Low to moderate Moderate to high Return on investment Assured Unknown, unsure Ready Market Yes Believed but uncertain Marketing Easy Reshaping the Market Chance of wrong product Little chance Big chance Comfort zone Dead center Nowhere in sight Core competencies Yes Develop new competencies Effort Low to moderate Moderate to high Investment Low to moderate Moderate to high Education Producer educated by cust. Customer educated by prod. Market belief Belief in the current Market Belief in Market change Types of products produced Phenotypes Genotypes Product evolution scenario Current S-curve products Next S-curve products Vision Making what exists better What could Asking the Business answers dominate Customer may not know Focus Products Solutions for functions Innovation Mild Incredible Typical mgmt.

10 Mindset Managerial Leadership Chart 1. Characteristic differences between Market pull and Technology push product development. A final point of definition from Morello1 serves to illustrate the difference between a user and a consumer . The user of a product (or service) is that person who actually uses the product or service for his or her immediate purpose. When I use a photocopier at my place of employment, I am the user of the product. With regard to products or services, users have a refined interface with the product. They utilize it on numerous specific occasions. The user might or might not utilize all of the capabilities of the product. The use of the product becomes a microproject for the user. A consumer may be defined as the person (or group of persons) who puts the product (or service) into place for users. The purchasing group that decided what copiers to purchase or lease for a company, based on expected, collective, intended usage, and after comparing offerings, is the consumer.


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