Research and development

1994/05/01 Aizpurua Sarasola, Joxerra Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ikerketa-zentroak
• Unibertsitateak

During the last decade, the departments known as R&D were opened in many companies. Its objectives were, among others, to improve product quality, optimize manufacturing procedures and maximize the productivity versus media ratio. Given the results, in general, it can be said that the quality of the products has been improved and the degree of automation of the workshops has been increased. Therefore, to get production ten years ago it takes much less time and labor.

The surplus of labour generated in the Basque Country, as in the rest of Europe, is also one of the results of the R&D departments of companies, a situation that will be accentuated in the coming years.

On the other hand, the advances made in different technologies, due to the influence of R&D departments, have been important and have also given rise to technologies that in their day did not exist and that are what we know through the introduction of new technologies. New technologies, in addition to implementing significant changes in the production of conventional products, have opened the way for the creation of new products and services.

The next stage of economic development focuses on new products and services. I believe that we are going towards the economy of imagination and that we will have to revolutionize the current financial and business structures. Rigidity is one of the most common features that can be found in company structures and staff training and that is the main enemy of innovation.

As rigidity transforms into flexibility, the doors will open to an imaginary economy. How to get it?

First you have to adapt the educational plans. Although science and letters have been two unique worlds, we must begin to build bridges so that less technocrats and more scientists are created.

In the business field, new coalitions between companies are needed, each contributing their knowledge so that it is possible to create new products. These coalitions need not be between companies in the same sector, but between sectors that have nothing to do with today.

The disappearance of the geographical borders of the market will mean an increase in the traffic of products and information, so companies must implement information and language technology in their production and in R&D departments, since both the use of information and the use of languages will require the development of various technologies.

Finally, administrations and financial institutions must facilitate this innovation process. In education and planning that the public administration organizes at different times, and therefore in investments, it must sow seed and financial institutions must adapt the characteristics of the financial market. At present, the money-lender is looking for an immediate return, but it is necessary to start helping the ideas and by taking them to materialize, the financial institutions must facilitate the path to the new economy in the loan of economic resources.

Therefore, the R&D departments of companies must become an intercompany R&D department in order to carry out the technological groupings that need the new products. * Industrial Engineer.