A reflection in the innovation and technology transfer experience in a regional micro-manufacturer: a case study

Abstract

[Abstract]: This paper provides an investigation into the innovation and technology transfer (I&TT) process in the Small-to-Medium (SME) sector within a University-Industry collaboration context. This paper provides an initial insight into the main influencing factors that affect innovation and technology transfer (I&TT) in regional micro-manufacturers. This paper explores and reflects on the innovation and technology transfer experience by embedding oneself within a micro-manufacturer. The experience initially focused on the manufacturing factors such as increasing productivity through work study and work-flow analysis, and introducing semi-automation, and flexible manufacturing methodology. However, as the project progressed, several non-manufacturing factors were identified as major influences in the I&TT process within the targeted micro-manufacturer. The ability to progress in improving the manufacturing factors is often dependent on these factors, and is categorized as personal and business related. The underlying project on which the paper is based involved a SWOT analysis on the business, learning and discovering the obstacles and barriers for I&TT, seeking and proposing ways to reduce it, and modeling the overall I&TT process within micro-manufacturers in regional areas, and termed regional knowledge diffusion (RKD) model.