Aatmanirbharta Series: The three frontiers of technology transfer
By CV Krishnan from The Defence Vadacurry
This is a Guest Post of Krishnan CV (@cvkrishnan on X/Twitter) on aspects of Technology Transfer in India.
This is first in a series of articles I plan to write on Aatmanirbharta, the various facets, processes and the technical and economic aspects involved.
For years, or maybe even decades, we Indians have heard this term Transfer of Technology as a fancy silver bullet for a lot of our technological decays. But what does Technology transfer means? Does it mean a single type of a mechanism with a single type of outcome? Or are there multiple shades to it? I explore, what I believe are the three frontiers of a successful technology transfer in this article.
Assembling as a workshare (screwdrivergiri)
This is what is most commonly passed on as transfer of technology in many international defense cases. This mostly involves assembling Completely Knocked Down (CKD) kits shipped from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and its supplier to the contractors. This type is pushed through in cases where a nation is entering new into the segment and its industry has very little understanding of the product. Helps in jobs and some assembling skills but not beyond. It doesn’t add any expertise/know-how to the local companies. Useful for marketing both for business and the politician.
Let’s get down to the more realistic frontiers of technology transfer.
Mastering the manufacturing process
This is the second most common form of technology transfer that happens amongst fairly serious players. A system of system product is to be manufactured. The beneficiary partner gets the “know-how” manufacturing process documents, some design documents and handholding from the OEM in terms of process management, supply chain, value stream mapping and hands on training of its workers in the manufacturing process of the specific product and its subsystems. Over time, the beneficiary partner is able to manufacture the said parts without guidance and support of the OEM (know-how). One of the sub steps within this frontier is the ability to understand the manufacturing process and be able to apply it to manufacturing products that are parallel or nearby in terms of technological needs. Su-30 MKI manufacturing by HAL and the upcoming C-295 manufacturing by Tata-Airbus are prime examples. The requirements needed to achieve this frontier is rather straightforward and is usually embedded in the contract documents itself as an obligation from the OEM.
Mastering the technology
This is the next frontier to be conquered after mastering the manufacturing technology. This frontier can be achieved only when the beneficiary partner puts in their effort to take the ToT further from simply manufacturing to the drawings and specifications to understanding the engineering and physics aspect (know-why) of the shared platform and some of the associated subsystems. These are not written down in a design doc. There are no textbooks. But there are wealth and wealth of test data that provide the underlying engineering and multi-physics insights. These are seldom shared by the OEMs. The beneficiary team has to figure out, breaking their head, benchmarking, testing specimens, reverse engineering, and absorbing the tech and analyzing from their own intrinsic fundamental knowledge. This is almost never part of a ToT deal. It requires the leadership, attitude, focus and perseverance of the team receiving the ToT to go beyond understanding manufacturing to specifications, to understanding the design process and the engineering physics. This helps in developing newer iterations with minor or major changes to the form, features and the performance of the product. Eg, Brahmos, SAAW, Vikas engine
Mastering the paradigm
I wouldn’t say this as the final frontier but this kind of is what one can achieve maximum possibly in a Transfer of Technology scenario. In this realm, we go beyond mastering the specific product and the neighboring family of applications but get on with developing the next generation of the product family on their own reaching the state of the art and beyond for the family of technologies that exists in the known realm. This requires necessarily the vision of the govt (seldom do free markets enter this realm), copious funding and creating the talent and research base to be able to tap into and develop an ecosystem and master the paradigm. Eg, India’s missile program
This is considered as the logical end of a Technology Transfer process for a large complex platform. The most simplistic understanding assumes that when we get a ToT of a complex technology, we reach the third frontier automatically. But in most cases, we stop at frontier-1 itself. Each step here requires not just what the technology benefactor gives, but even more as to how far the beneficiary entity goes in absorbing, assimilating and fostering the know-how or know-why got.
We will post the other parts of the Atmanirbharata Series by CV Krishnan as time comes.