Industrialisation guidelines methodology

The industrialisation of any new technical system requires the establishment of the required industrial infrastructure and supplier base for the system. This paper describes a methodology for the determination of industrialisation guidelines for such programmes. The methodology considers three types of considerations. They are: (1) strategic and operational requirements, (2) market considerations, and (3) current industrial capabilities. These are evaluated and the scores are combined to calculate the recommended industrialisation guidelines. There are four possible outcomes or guidelines that this methodology produces. They are for: (1) local procurement, (2) overseas procurement, (3) partnership procurement, or (4) competitive procurement. The merits of the methodology are that it is systematic and explicit. Its weakness is that it oversimplifies the problem and can therefore only be considered as a guideline or recommendation. Two examples of the application of this methodology are given. These are for the armaments industry and the Pebble Bed Modular Nuclear Reactor project.