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218 CHAPTER 6 • PRoCEss TECHnology sTRATEgy

Figure 6.10 Broad categories of evaluation criteria for assessing concepts

What INVESTMENT (both
Feasibility – How managerial and financial)
diƒcult is it?
will be needed?
The criteria What RETURN Overall
for Acceptability – How evaluation
screening worthwhile is it? (in terms of benefits to of the
concepts the operation) will it give? concept
What RISKS
Vulnerability – What do we run if things go
could go wrong?
wrong?

either available or can be obtained, the technology is not feasible. So, evaluating the
feasibility of an option means finding out how the various types of resource that the
option might need match up to what is available. Four broad questions are applicable.
What technical or human skills are required to implement the technology? Every process
technology will need a set of skills to be present within the organisation, so that it can
be successfully implemented. If new technology is very similar to that existing in the
organisation, it is likely that the necessary skills will already be present. If, however,
the technology is completely novel, it is necessary to identify the required skills and to
match these against those existing in the organisation.
What ‘quantity’ or ‘amount’ of resources is required to implement the technology? Deter-
mining the quantity of resources (people, facilities, space, time etc.) required for the
implementation of a technology is an important stage in assessing feasibility because
it is time dependent. Rarely will a lack of sufficient process engineers, for example, rule
out a particular process technology, but it could restrict when it is adopted. So, a firm
may deliberately choose to delay some of its process technology decisions because it
knows that its current commitments will not allow it. In order to assess this type of
feasibility, a company may compare the aggregate workload associated with its imple-
mentation over time with its existing capacity.
What are the funding or cash requirements? The previous two questions can be difficult
to answer in a meaningful way, but this does not diminish their significance. However,
in any real investment evaluation, one ‘feasibility’ factor will inevitably come to domi-
nate all other considerations – do we have enough money? Because of this significance
we will spend a little more time reviewing some of the many approaches that have been
developed to aid managers in their analysis of cash flow and funding requirements over
the lifetime of an investment project.
Can the operation cope with the degree of change in resource requirements? Even if all these
resource requirements can quite feasibly be obtained individually by the organisation,
the degree of change in the total resource position of the company might itself be
regarded as infeasible. Consider, for instance, a bespoke manufacturer of road-racing
bicycles being encouraged to leverage its reputation for high quality into the ‘top end’
of the mass cycle market (i.e. much higher volumes). This would require the firm to
make substantial investment in automated tube welding equipment. The firm is con-
fident that it will be able to obtain all the different categories of resource required for
the project. It believes that it can recruit the appropriate expertise in sufficient quantity
from the labour market. Furthermore, it believes that it could fund the project until it

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