Productivity, Products and Technology in Business

What is the role of production technology in business? A careful review can reveal several roles for technology, including:

• Increasing productivity is an important function of technology. Even simple hand tools can significantly improve productivity by making it possible to do more work in the same time or produce more output with available resources.
• Bringing out new products is another result of technological development. The technology of steam engine led to the railways while a number of technologies helped the development of television.
• Doing work in hazardous environments where humans cannot work is made possible by robot technology.
• Activities like space travel, remote communications, deep sea exploration and making animation films such as the Avatar all became possible through technology.

Technology is varied and your particular business will determine the kind of technology you need. For example, food production technology, music production technology, manufacturing technology and seed production technology have different orientations and focus. Processes involved in a particular technology can be chemical, electrical, mechanical, biological or something else.

The following overview of manufacturing processes can give some idea of what is involved in technology:

• Manufacturing: Casting, molding, forming, machining and joining to make components
• Production line: Involves a series of refining processes or adding components to create a finished product
• Assembly line: Adding parts in a sequential manner and planned logistics to create a finished product
• Semiconductor fabrication: Involves a series of photographic and chemical processing steps
• Industrial processes: Can be chemical processes, electrolysis, liquefaction, drying, scrubbing and more
• Leather: Preparation, tanning, crusting

Technology in Business

After marketing, technology is the most important factor that can affect the success of a business. While marketing generates revenues, technology determines costs. Revenues and costs determine the profits that a business makes.

Organizing the right technology is thus a key function of establishing a business. Every industry, from agriculture and fishing to entertainment has been affected by technological developments. Using obsolete technology can seriously reduce the competitiveness of a business.

Right technology need not always be the latest and state-of-the art. A hand-crafted car has its own value while the mass produced small car has a different value. Both have a market.

Developments in information and communication technology have enabled business organization to extend their operations to global in scale. Even a small business in some remote corner, for example, can sell to the whole world. At the other end, the “sun never sets” for some global corporations with operations spanning the globe.

New technologies have the potential to transform the way we do things. Information technology has transformed communications, business processes, R&D and entertainment beyond what it was a few years ago. Nanotechnology is promising to create completely new materials with tailor made properties. And modern biotechnology holds the promise to cure “incurable” diseases by working with our genes.

Technology thus has a critical role in business.