Analysing the technology relevance of nanotechnology in product planning

Emerging technologies like nanotechnology are being considered a driving force for innovation. With impacts to be anticipated for nearly every industry, nanotechnology and applications can be considered cross-section or enabling technologies. In this, however, development in the fields of nanotechnologies is still mostly technology and opportunity-driven. Furthermore, the nanotechnology potential in terms of technological function and utility, with new effects and properties of nano-scaled materials and -structures in particular, are yet to be discovered in enterprises as well as with developers and designers communities. Between the technological bank of nanotechnologies and application banks, a significant gap is to be recognised. Therefore new management approaches are necessary to cope with uncertainty of knowledge in nanotechnology during the early phases of innovation processes and product design. This paper presents an approach for analysing and assessing technology relevance nanotechnology in product planning context. The assessment is based on a product function-related feasibility analysis covering several factors for potential success. The objective is to match the potential effects and properties of nano-materials and -structures with product functions to high-light feasible application fields. Thus, enterprises get a specific assessment of where and how they can apply nanotechnology. A use case shows the application of this relevance analysis by a German enterprise from filling and packing machines industry.