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WHAT is PRoCEss TECHnology sTRATEgy? 199
clear. For example, the ‘direct’ functional capabilities of an insurance company’s IT
system will define the types of product that the firm can offer. Yet the same IT system’s
‘indirect’ capability to forecast demand, schedule call centre staff to meet demand and
issue billing details will be of equal importance.

Material, information and customer processing
In Chapter 1, we distinguished between operations that predominantly processed
materials, information or customers. Process technologies can be similarly classified;
Table 6.1 shows some common process technologies of each type. Note that some of
these technologies may have secondary, though important, elements in other cate-
gories. For example, many material processing technologies used in manufacturing
may also be processing information relating to the physical dimensions, or some other
property, of what is being processed. A machine, while processing materials, may also
be deciding whether tooling needs changing, whether to slow the rate of processing
because of rising temperature, noting small variations in physical dimensions to plot
on process control charts, and so on. In effect, an important aspect of the technology’s
capability is to integrate materials and information processing. Similarly, internet-
based technologies used by online retailers may be handling specific order informa-
tion but are also integrating this information with characteristics of your previous
orders, in order to suggest further purchases. Sometimes technologies integrate across
all three types of technology. The systems used at the check-in gate of airports is inte-
grating the processing of airline passengers (customers), details of their flight, destina-
tion and seating preference (information) and the number and nature of their items of
luggage (materials). Technologies are increasingly ‘overlapping’ to become integrating
technologies.

Process technology strategy

We define process technology strategy as:
‘the set of decisions that define the strategic role that direct and indirect process technology
can play in the overall operations strategy of the organisation and sets out the general charac-
teristics that help to evaluate alternative technologies’.

table 6.1 some process technologies classified by their primary inputs
Material processing technologies Information processing technologies Customer processing technologies
Flexible manufacturing systems Optical character-recognition machines Surgical equipment
(FMS) Management information systems Milking machines
Weaving machines Global positioning systems Medical diagnostic equipment
Baking ovens Search engines on the internet Body scanners
Automatic vending machines Online financial information systems Aircraft
Container handling equipment Telecommunication technologies Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) systems
Trucks Archive storage systems Renal dialysis systems
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) Cinema digital projection
Automatic warehouse facilities Computer games
Low-temperature warehouses Theme park rides

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