Development of a gap assessment strategy for R&D management

Summary from only given as follows. A gap assessment strategy is developed to determine the status of a company's R&D operations. Among the specific factors that were considered are the following: the ability to respond to rapid and unexpected changes in the marketplace; optimization of R&D process to the point where the concept-to-market time is minimized; and the capability to produce future product extensions. This strategy is qualitative in its approach and the gap-assessment is done with the aid of software developed for this purpose. The software is based on agility principles developed for a R&D operation. This paper primarily focuses on the development and capabilities of the R&D gap assessment software.