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202 CHAPTER 6 • PRoCEss TECHnology sTRATEgy
any technology strategy. Why do we need to develop our technology? Where do we
want to go with our technological capabilities? How far away are we from that objec-
tive? How can we get to where we want to be? In what order should we do things? By
when should development goals be reached? Yet TRMs do not offer any solutions to any
firm’s technological strategic options; in fact, they need not offer options or alternative
technology trajectories. They are essentially a narrative description of how a set of inter-
related developments should (rather than will) progress. Because of this they have been
criticised as encouraging over-optimistic projections of the future. Nevertheless, they
do provide, at the very least, a plan against which technology strategy can be assessed.

Process technology should reflect volume and variety

Although process technologies vary between different types of operation, there are some
underlying characteristics that can be used to distinguish between them. These charac-
teristics are strongly related to volume and variety, with different process technologies
appropriate for different parts of the volume–variety continuum. High- variety, low-
volume processes generally require process technology that is general purpose, because
it can perform the wide range of processing activities that high variety demands. High-
volume, low-variety processes can use technology that is more dedicated to its narrower
range of processing requirements. Within the spectrum from general-purpose to dedi-
cated process technologies three characteristics in particular tend to vary with volume
and variety. The first is the extent to which the process technology carries out activities
or makes decisions for itself – that is, its degree of ‘automation’. The second is the capac-
ity of the technology to process work – that is, its ‘scale’ or ‘scalability’. The third is the
extent to which it is integrated with other technologies – that is, its degree of ‘coupling’
or ‘connectivity’. We shall look at each of these characteristics.

scale/scalability – the capacity of each unit of technology
Scale is an important issue in almost all process technologies and is closely related to
the discussion in Chapter 4 dealing with capacity strategy. Here we delve inside ‘capac-
ity’ to explore how individual units of process technology go to make up the overall
capacity of an operation. For example, consider a small regional airline serving just one
main route between two cities. It has an overall capacity of 2,000 seats per day in either
direction on its route. This capacity is ‘defined’ by its two 200-seater aircraft making five
return journeys each day between the two cities. An alternative plan would be to replace
its two identical 200-seat aircraft with one 250-seater and one 150-seater aircraft. This
gives the company more flexibility in how it can meet varying demand levels through-
out the day. It also may give more options in how its aircraft are deployed should it take
on another route and buy additional aircraft. Of course, costs will be affected by the
company’s mix of aircraft. Generally, at full utilisation larger aircraft offer superior cost
performance per passenger-mile than smaller aircraft. The important point here is that
by adopting units of process technology (aircraft) with different scale characteristics,
the airline could significantly affect its operations performance. Factors influencing
the desirability of large-scale technology include the following:
● What is the capital cost of the technology? Broadly speaking, the larger the unit of
technology the more its capital cost but the less its capital cost per unit of capacity.

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