Although this might be an alternative entry to the topic (I am unsure since
I don't exactly grasp what you are heading for) the point was not a
general description of organizations - we try to delimit the content
of technology.
> Larry Perlov writes:
>
> > Regarding Steen Martiny's request to classify technologies and use a
> > method to communicate technology to the rest of the organization. I
> > have attended a Technology Management course at the University of
> > Cape Town - Graduate School of Business. The course was given by
> > Prof Rias van Wyk. Prof van Wyk's theory on technology
> > classification and communication is given below. See various papers
> > by Prof van Wyk for more details.
van Wyk's matrix:
Process Transport Store
Matter | | | |
Information | | | |
Energy | | | |
I have taken contact to van Wyk who has supplied some references which I
will get hold on.
Maybe I should mention that we try to take a company-centric view on techno-
logy (what does the term technology mean to companies) and also an induction
view of finding the dimension's of technology (how do technical and non-
technical managers describe the company's technology). This comes from
the fact that we are very much interested in how to communicate relevant
aspects of technology between high-level people in organizations which do
not perform technical operations but shall be able to grasp the essence of
it.
Even though it is somewhat against the rules of induction we have up till
now been most attracted to a combination of Wheelwright & Clark's (from
their book "Revolutionizing product development") characterization and
Zeleny's characterization which lead to the following matrix:
product- process- technology-
technology technology organization
physical
software
brainware
support net
Note: "Brainware" is what is in the operator's head, "support net" is what
is needed in environment to allow the technology to function (supplies,
supporting technologies, infrastructure etc.)
The might be other interesting matrixes to study. Since we are heading for
induction study the direction of the field will of course be most important
to us.
Regards
Steen Martiny
-- Steen Martiny | | Innovia martiny@innovia.ping.dk | | Hjortholmsvej 16 A FAX (+45) 45 85 43 67 | | DK-2830 Virum (Denmark)