Why do KTP (knowledge transfer partnerships) developments get stuck in development?
The answer is in all in a word: experience. Smooth development is underpinned by management of the experience, abilities, and limitations of all those involved. This is widely understood, but problems can occur with academic KTPs because their attributes are often misunderstood, and in extreme cases their intelligence misread as universal ability and their output unfairly judged. Dogged by the ‘impractical’ cliche, the academic clings to tasks that he/she is not efficient at whilst surrounded by those for whom said tasks are straightforward. Those guilty of using the ‘impractical’ label may do so to diminish the value of something that they don’t understand, possibly out of a feeling inferiority equal in level to the obsession many academics have with the label impractical. Unfortunately, this can lead to a team that is worth less than the sum of its parts and a product that stubbornly remains in development because it is the only discipline of which the academic has real experience.
Some real world examples witnessed by us:
- Complex 3D printed parts that can not be transferred to an injection moulding process.
- Academics hand soldering PCBs for which footprints were designed by them. The footprints don’t suit pick and place.
- Electronics hardware with which performance has been achieved by designing from first principles rather than using off the shelf, time served, approved chips.
- Academics, with the best will in the world, choosing unreliable and inappropriate suppliers for the technical and commercial level of product involved.
- Little use made of decades of hard won experience in the KTP – company. Examples below:
- Academic could have handed design of 3D print and injection moulding to mechanical and production engineers with decades of experience.
- Electronics engineers can speedily design hardware that can be produced by contract electronics manufacturers – the academic need only define the need.
- Production engineers can ensure moulds can be injection moulded and footprints on PCBs are suitable for mass manufacture.
Where is the KTP most useful and when should his/her output be passed onto others?
The answer is quite simple but less easy to implement. Concept prototype is the answer. The KTP should prove the concept with concept level prototypes to a level that can be explained to engineers. The KTP can then move to pastures new where he/she will deliver even more gems and engineers can neatly tie up and deliver the original work. An order of magnitude more output becomes available. This article is an awful lot easier to write than to do. The complicated emotions of the highly intelligent and the profoundly experienced are not easy to control, combine and manage, but that is what is necessary to overcome this perennial problem.
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