I. Current Situation: The development of the Three Dimensional Printing Process (3DP) at MIT by researchers – Emmanuel Sachs, John Haggerty, Michael Cima, and Paul Williams – that revolutionized various businesses with its technology.
a. Mission – For MIT to advance knowledge and educate in science, technology, and other areas that will best serve the nation and the world.
b. Goals – The development of 3DP for research and technology.
c. Objectives – To make use of the new ideas, technologies, and research of students to enhance the further existence of MIT inventions.
d. Major Problem – Taking the MIT 3DP technology as a concept and exploiting it to create new businesses.
II. Strategic Management
a. Board of Directors – MIT and
Weaknesses
i. Entry into the market as a viable idea ii. Limited to Johnson & Johnson first in medical technology industry iii. Process improvements of the fabrication of additives iv. Inability to use diverse data
c. Opportunities
i. Advancing the technology into numerous industries ii. Entrepreneurs who seek to use the technology iii. Financial and licensing venues for MIT iv. World-wide recognition
v. Mainstreaming the fit and function of the process
d. Threats
i. Duplication of the idea with more enhanced machinery ii. Continual breakthroughs in technology iii. Not taking risks to involve the concept in an idea iv. Trends to process improvement and optimization
VI. Strategic Alternatives
a. Corporate Level – Not allowing or pursuing business ventures
b. Business Level
i. Pros
1. New ideas to cut cost, time, and physical effort
2. Coming up with new ways to enhance the industry
3. Seek other scientific and technological ideas
4. Rapid production of prototypes ii. Cons
1. Faster processors and material variety
2. Another company develops the same idea
3. Improving speed to add more tools
4. Bottlenecking of some aspects of the process
VII. Recommendations
a. Look over all business plans carefully – ask questions – and be part of the designing and implementation of the idea to mold the overall process. Allow the TLO to continue to pursue opportunities for the betterment of MIT and its students.