The Progress of the Strategic Technology Roadmap of METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan): Practical Business Cases and Sustainable Manufacturing Perspective

摘要

The Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (hereafter, METI) has formulated and revised the Strategic Technology Roadmap (hereafter, the STR) to provide the up-to-date national infrastructure for strategic R&D management. Both the STR and the METI's technology roadmapping effectiveness have been widely valued in R&D society. In addition, Japan could be a world leading country on eco-innovation, because of its historical experience on environment and energy-saving. METI developed a new area of sustainable manufacturing technology in the STR and will present it to the global basis. METI has actively involved itself in technology roadmapping for recent years to build broad discussion basis for researchers and business-oriented people in academia, industry and government. METI decided to develop its technology roadmaps in various areas in order to illustrate future industry opportunities and reasonable ways for technology to be developed. We call the roadmaps as the STR. The STR consists of 1) The Scenario for Dissemination that includes relevant policies that should be dealt with in order to provide the public with findings of R&D as products and services, 2) Technology Overview in which Prioritized critical technologies are described in addition to technological challenges, elemental technologies, and desired functions in order to satisfy market and social needs, and 3) The Roadmap in which improvement and progress of elemental technologies generated from R&D, and the enhancement of the desired functions are displayed on a time axis as milestones. Also, a reference and summary containing the main ideas are attached. METI has been continuing effort to utilize technology roadmapping in the course of R&D management. This map is arranged systematically and strategically with an enormous amount of technical information regarding industrial technology. It is believed that it will be of benefit in terms of information provision for both industry and related scientific groups to unearth new research and engineering development themes, and for the continuing creation of new intellectual property. As a step toward the construction of a national innovation system, MITI continues to make an attempt to smoothen communication among industry, academia and government through this roadmapping process. A total of approximately 550 members from industrial, academic, and public institutions were involved to study and discuss the STR as a member of task forces. And METI decided the STR to be revised every year in principle. Last spring, METI released forth version of the STR entitled "the STR 2008" as a result of successive efforts. The newest version, STR 2008, covers 30 fields of industry technology which include a new area of sustainable manufacturing technology. Japan could be a world leading country on eco-innovation, because of its historical experience on environment and energy-saving. For example, Japanese industry has reduced its energy consumption to around half of 30 years ago. Also, Japan could serve as the best partner to collaborate with other countries to negotiate continuing economic growth while alleviating global warming and other global issues. In Japan, now, lots of academies and companies utilize the STR and embrace their own technology roadmapping activities as communication initiatives outside and inside of interdisciplinary R&D projects. Some small and medium-sized enterprises quote the STR to their own strategic business roadmaps. The STR is referred in the discussion process of actual R&D projects in many ways, not only for evaluating the progress of specific projects, but also for discussing future expansion of application, etc. In addition, the process of making the STR is a highly valuable tool for nurturing communication in various ways: among researchers, between researchers and businesspersons, among different players in value chains, and between scientists and engineers, etc. The technology roadmapping is no