http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
Knowledge management challenges for remote research & development teams
bridging science, engineering, and business
Knowledge management challenges for remote research and development teams
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?