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Forewold
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III, Results of Research
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(3) Conditions for promoting orders to make prototypes
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1. The critical points for clients in selecting contractors
for outsourcing
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Research centers, universities and venture companies look at R&D and technical skills as important factors, while large companies emphasize cost and speed. Large companies and venture companies highly rank creativity and strong proposal skills. Close proximity to the client is not an important point.
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Research centers, universities and venture companies look at R&D and
technical skills as important factors, while large companies consider costs and
speed important. They also seem to be outsourcing aggressively in order to speed
up the development process and achieve economic efficiency rather than taking
advantage of outside skills for development and technology. It is a common factor
with all groups that [lack of] proximity is not a problem. Therefore, the
[outsourcing] market for contractors can cover a wide area.
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2. Methods of selecting contractors
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Overwhelmingly, a long relationship with the contractor is the strongest.
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Universities are consulting with and issuing orders to contractors that have been introduced by staff researchers or that have established good relationships over time.
Most of the companies are selecting contractors on the basis of past performance. Large companies and venture companies are also using public agencies to find new contractors. On the other hand, they will rarely select a
contractor that walks in with a proposal. Since every group has a strong affinity with the contractors of long standing, a newcomer will need to make extra effort in order to obtain that first contract.
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3. Methods by which trust is granted [to contractors]
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The majority of respondents consider past performance to be an important factor. There are cases of granting trust through means of a detailed service agreement.
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Every group looks at past performance. From the standpoint that past transactions are considered important factors in the selection of a contractor, we can assume that past performance is important. We can see that most companies are signing service agreements with contractors in order to protect the confidentiality and contents of such transactions.
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4. Issues
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Contractors are not sending enough information about their products or technological skills. They need to be more skillful in making sales proposals, and must establish a system with which they can gain the trust of businesses.
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1,Lack of information on the contractor
The information on contractorsf products and technological skills is not adequately communicated to their customers. To generate new business contracts it is important for the service contractors to actively advertise the expertise they can provide in technology and development. In the case of prototyping without making the final product, visualization of the technology is difficult, and as a result it is necessary to use a special technique to explain the proprietary technology.
2,Building strong proposal skills
To get orders from R&D divisions, contractors need new technologies and strong skills in terms of the proposals they make. Accordingly, they need to establish their core technologies, obtain package orders with composite technologies, and have strong proposal skills from the R&D phase.
To cut costs and increase productivity and production speed on the production lines, outside contractors are expected to propose innovative manufacturing technologies that can develop and improve manufacturing equipment.
3,Concerns about confidentiality
Except for universities, companies in the private sector consider maintenance of confidentiality to be a key issue. They cope with it by signing detailed service contracts, but the contractors need to set up a system with which they can gain and enhance the trust of their clients.
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Table of Contents
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I, Purpose and Method of Research
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II, Summary of Research Report
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III, Results of Research
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(1)Estimating the market size of the prototyping industry
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1,Estimating the extent of "outsourcing" by large companies
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2,Extent of "outsourcing" by universities
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(2) Prediction of promising fields for the prototyping industry
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1,The current situation of outsourcing
-1,Utilization
-2,Contents of outsourced orders
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2,Outlook for Outsourcing
-1,Prospect for increased outsourcing
-2,Predicted contents of outsourcing
-3,Expected outsourcing of "prototyping"
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(3)Conditions for promoting orders to make prototypes
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1,The critical points for clients in selecting contractors for outsourcing
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2,Methods of selecting contractors
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3,Methods by which trust is granted [to contractors]
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4,Issues
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Important factors in selecting contractors
(weighted-average values)
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Methods of selecting outside contractors
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Trust granted to outside contractors
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Issues when increasing outsourcing
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IV,Potential for promoting the prototyping industry
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V,Suggestions for promotion of the prototyping industry
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