Acquiring advanced engineering technologies under conditions of performance improvement

To remain competitive, firms need to develop long-term strategies for acquiring and using advanced engineering and manufacturing technologies. In addition, technology managers are under increasing pressure to produce better results, with less time and risks, and with fewer resources. A resulting trend is a greater use of external relationships and resources to achieve the needed technological accomplishments with greater efficiency. However, there are numerous alternatives for obtaining internally and/or externally the personnel and equipment components of advanced technologies. A mathematical model which identifies the optimal means for acquiring the components for advanced engineering technology requirements, allows the engineering technology resources to be internal or external to the firm, and allows the personnel and equipment to have realistic nonlinear performance improvement (learning) or decay capabilities should be of interest and use to both technology management researchers and practicing engineering/technology managers. The nonlinear integer programming model described herein provides this capability. A comprehensive and realistically based example problem is provided and an optimal solution is obtained and compared with the results of more common, but also more expensive, solutions. Numerous future research extensions are offered.