Knowledge management challenges for remote research & development teams : bridging science, engineering, and business /
Blue Energy, a petrochemical supplier in Malaysia, is working with a research and development team based in multiple locations around the globe to complete commercial scale-up of a new process for synthesizing methanol. And they are facing repeated slow-downs and failures in their R&D process. T...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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London :
SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals,
2022.
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| Series: | SAGE business cases.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Blue Energy, a petrochemical supplier in Malaysia, is working with a research and development team based in multiple locations around the globe to complete commercial scale-up of a new process for synthesizing methanol. And they are facing repeated slow-downs and failures in their R&D process. They aren't hitting expected milestones.Even in ideal conditions, such as those found in the famous 'Skunk Works' lab of Lockheed Martin, managing complex and non-linear processes of discovery and research and development (R&D) is exceptionally difficult. Unlike other functions or projects in the enterprise, by its very nature, discovery and R&D is both non-linear and non-deterministic. By its very definition, discovery as a process has uncertain outcomes with uncertain benchmarks. A company can work for years with no result only to stumble on a million dollar return-on-investment because an accident or radical insight during a coffee break. This problem, of managing real R&D is exacerbated by the increasingly global and fractured nature of teams often working both remotely and in very different parts of the world.Jessica Mills is coordinating the R & D process for Blue Energy. The development team she is working with consists of five people: a Malaysian glycerin expert, the French co-inventor based in Lyons, an American co-inventor based in Miami, an American simulations company based in Ohio, and a reactor assembler and designer based in Texas. What appears at first to be a straight-forward scaling simulation that is part of a discovery and design process becomes increasingly complicated as the teams navigate the challenges of remote work. Soon Jessica begins to wonder: Is remote work the only complicating factor here? Or is there some other factor in play? |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource. |
| ISBN: | 9781529624656 1529624657 |