Assessing risks and opportunities of technology infusion in system design

Abstract Most new technologies only deliver value once they are infused into a parent system. While the literature on innovation itself is abundant, there is a lack of understanding and methodology in terms of evaluating both the risks and opportunities of new technologies not in isolation, but in terms of their integration into a parent system in a wider regulatory and competitive context. This paper presents a technology infusion assessment methodology to quantify the potential performance benefits of new technologies using multiobjective Pareto analysis. Moreover, the costs of infusing new technologies are also considered using the concept of architectural invasiveness relative to a baseline system. The degree of invasiveness of different system architectures is related to the amount of design change required to accommodate the new technology. This is quantified with a component‐based change Design Structure Matrix (DSM). Risks and opportunities are quantified by evaluating the utility of future benefits and costs of a new technology against uncertain exogenous variables such as gains made by competing technologies and potential future regulatory actions. The technology infusion methodology is demonstrated for a hydrogen‐enhanced combustion engine, where the effects of integrating a plasma fuel reformer are quantified and discussed in terms of fuel economy, NO x emissions, and add‐on vehicle costs. The methodology is generally applicable to support quantitative analysis of technology infusion problems in system design. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 10: 1– 25, 2007