ABSTRACT
This chapter presents mathematical models reflecting the system-wide properties of the technology management process. A natural formulation of the technology management problem is to reach a required technology maturity level as fast as possible or using as few resources as possible. The well-known models postulate the form of the learning curve or its equations, whereas the model describes the technology evolution/management process and learning – the design process – as a particular case. The probability distribution of the completion time of the complex technology – the time to reach a given maturity/learning level for the chain – is the convolution of the probability distributions of the times for chains. The chapter develops models that describe the system-wide features of the technology management process: the synthesis, integration, testing, and use of the technology of complex activity. The existence of an external environment in which complex activity is implemented also requires its reflection in the models developed.
