Session guide: Case study - IRRI management compares IRRI with LDE research institutes
Case study: IRRI management compares IRRI with LDE research institutes
DATE
TIME
FORMAT Plenary participatory lecture
TRAINER
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OBJECTIVES |
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At the end of this session, participants should be able to apply the concept of leadership to a research institute situation, understand the motivating factors, and appreciate the importance of team building. |
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INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS |
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None. |
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REQUIRED READING |
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Case study prepared by R. Black: IRRI management compares IRRI with LDE research institutes. |
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BACKGROUND READING |
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(i) The IRRI Agricultural Equipment Programme. |
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SPECIAL EQUIPMENT AND AIDS |
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Overhead projector and chalkboard. |
1. This case was developed by Dr Ronald Black in 1976, and included in the first draft of the manual as background reading material. At the time, Dr Black was Assistant Director of the Denver Research Institute, Denver, Colorado, USA.
It is necessary that participants should have been exposed to the concepts of leadership, of motivation and of team building, either through the Reading notes and Background readings, or in separate sessions on each of these topics. This will enable better understanding and analysis of the case, and improve class participation.
Prior to the plenary session, participants should discuss the case in small groups. In that way, the case discussion in the plenary session should be comprehensive, organized and participative.
Initiate the discussion of the case by asking what insights can one gain into the factors that had led to the Agricultural Engineering Department's success in designing, developing and commercializing equipment appropriate for less developed countries. Was it the approach, the team, or leadership?
IRRI adopted a pragmatic, business-like, problem-solving approach in its engineering design programme. To begin with, the entire effort was devoted to one crop, rice, thus ensuring concentrated efforts and preventing dissipation of limited resources. The perspective was need-based, and design efforts were simple and inexpensive. The entire programme was directed at a particular phase of production. Marketing was the prime consideration and market analysis was conducted continuously. Design efforts recognised the capabilities of local industry, so that products could be fabricated or manufactured using easily available local equipment. Liaison was established with the local metal working industry to ensure that the product designed could be carried all the way to a commercially saleable form. This approach facilitated adoption of new, more appropriate machinery. This was possible because the entire effort was based on the requirements of paddy growers and prevailing environmental conditions. Note that a machine designed in Japan was not widely adopted, while the designs of IRRI were usually exploited commercially. Another important observation is that adaptation of existing knowledge could provide easy solutions to many problems. One does not have to re-invent the wheel all the time.
A question that needs deliberation is whether this approach can be replicated in other research institutions or widely in developing countries.
It is obvious that the success of the programme rested on the leadership of Dr Amir Khan. What kind of a leader is Dr Khan? A believer in Theory X or in Theory Y? What are his qualities? Obviously, he has good conceptualization ability, coupled with good professional knowledge. Note his observation that when a colleague approaches with a problem, he has to come up with a solution. That is possible only with presence of mind and application of sound professional knowledge. Dr Khan is practical and does not place undue value on academic excellence. He is always willing to exploit an opportunity. Although he leads a team, he firmly believes that team-work should not subordinate individuality, whence emanates creativity. To him, poor memory is a good medium to unlearn so that new ideas can be generated. At this point, the case discussion could focus on desirable characteristics of a leader and the concept of team building.
What motivated Dr Khan and his colleagues to keep their ears to the ground even though they belonged to an elite international agricultural research centre. Was it achievement orientation or intrinsic desire to excel? Or was it the sheer excitement of doing something new?
What was the goal of Dr Khan and his team? Obviously, setting a clear-cut goal had helped them. Discuss at this stage the importance and process of goal setting in the success of a programme.
Finally, are there leaders like Dr Khan? At this stage, the importance of leadership in the success of a programme could once again be reiterated.
During the discussion, participants will make several observations. The resource person should attempt to integrate them with conceptual knowledge of leadership, motivation and team building.
Discussions with Dr Amir U. Khan
Discussions with Dr Bart Duff
The IRRI agricultural equipment programme
By mid-1975, approximately 50 000 items of intermediate technology farm equipment had been commercially produced based on designs of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila. The concepts and original designs for this equipment had originated in IRRI's Agricultural Engineering Department (AED). AED had been headed, since 1967, by Dr Amir U. Khan, an agricultural engineer. In 1970, he was joined by Dr Bart Duff, an agricultural economist. During the years they had dominated it, AED/IRRI had gained worldwide fame.
Writer: Why is IRRI successful compared with many of the applied research institutions that one finds in less-developed economies (LDEs)?
Khan: That is a difficult question to answer. My own thinking is that we have a strong commercial orientation. I have been in the farm machinery business most of my life and on the commercial side much of the time. We emphasize and keep the commercial approach always in mind. That is the main thing. Costs, production processes and manufacturing methods. Once we get a package of the end product, it is usually ready to be manufactured, and then the manufacturers can't afford to say 'no.' It is almost a ready-for-sale machine and can usually be produced without adding new production equipment. If you can look at our manufacturers, very few have added any new production equipment. Most manufacturers, I believe, are continuously on the lockout for new products. So it is a matter of providing them with a commercially saleable product. Others are often not successful because they do not realize that one has to take a product all the way to the commercially saleable form. They often make an experimental machine and consider that they have completed the design. That is not so.
Writer: One of the complaints that I have heard from directors of these research institutions is that they cannot keep the salary scale high enough to attract people who have the competence to carry out the development process.
Khan: I don't believe that. It is an impediment of a kind but much of it is in the leadership. Often the leadership does not understand what goes on in a commercial venture because most of them are academic people, who come from academic institutions before becoming directors. They often do not have a clear-cut idea of which way their institution is heading, and this is a serious problem. You go to any of the agricultural engineering research centres and find that most engineers are not after new solutions. They are mostly interested in testing old machines. Sometimes they will buy an idea just for ideas, or they will read in a magazine that somebody tried an idea and they often work on duplicating it. They seldom study a need and then deliberately look for answers. Our thinking is that we must find a need and demand, which we may not do as a formal marketing study. But basically, it is still done in our minds. We look at the market, make an assessment about the kind of machine that is needed, and develop that kind of machine. A good case is the axial flow thresher. We gained experience with some threshers that were not working very well, including some of our own, and then we went out and designed a new machine, the axial flow thresher, which has found good market acceptance.
Writer: Do you think that the quality of your local staff is comparable to that in equivalent industries?
Khan: In a number of cases, yes. The men we used to take, in the early days of the programme, were fresh graduates. Now they have gained six to seven years of experience. Most of them had poor grades. In fact, in one case, the head of a department at the university said he was surprised that we would hire the type of engineer that we had just hired. One reason is that we are not looking for academic qualifications and excellence. I look for a practical individual. Most of the practical engineers do not have very good grades. The group here is a very practical bunch. They know how to fix things; they know how to play around with tools and with machines, but they are not so good in theory. In fact, this is becoming a weakness now when our work is becoming more complex and sophisticated.
Writer: What I think you have done here is that you have created a local staff which provides practical engineering, practical know-how, while you and Bart and some of the international staff are providing the conceptual framework. Do you think you could find a Filipino who could play the role that you are playing, let us say?
Khan: It is hard to answer that question. It does not go with nationality. It is the individual. If you can find an individual... in fact I find that you do come across some but still such people are a rarity.
Writer: But I think... it is specifically a question I am concerned with... and I understand what you are saying. Leadership is a rare quality anywhere. But it would be even more difficult, I suggest, to get a Filipino who had these capabilities into a job like this, because he is already making so much use of his talent. He is already going so far that he probably would not be satisfied with this type of job. He would be such an asset to some of the Filipino companies or the government that he would have a very exalted position, and it would be very difficult for him to take something like this.
Khan: That is very true. If I had been a Filipino, I would have been by now if not a millionaire, at least close to it. The opportunities are tremendous if you know how.
Writer: So what is an LDE national research organization to do? How do you get that kind of people?
Khan: Well, we just have to provide this type of individual for leadership. How do you get them? That is hard, although providing leadership opportunity to the right kind of younger engineers and scientists is important. Salary-wise, most directors are getting sufficient salaries to attract talented individuals.
Writer: I would disagree with that. For example, I know of the director of one such institution who is having to rent out his house now just to be able to keep his children in school.
Khan: Well, they do have considerable side incomes.
Let me give you an example of a young Filipino engineer who works for us, Nester Navasero. He has been providing many small, simpler machine concepts and programmes. He is a young engineer who had rather poor grades. In fact, we tried to send him back to school because our management said he could not be promoted without a Master's degree; he is already quite high up in salary scale. Well, he could not do well in course work, but he does provide some good concepts, although he is not as good in engineering knowledge or design. Still, he has many good ideas.
Many people have ideas; however, commercially successful ideas and mere ideas are two different things. You have to have a feel for what will sell and what will not. If you have a lot of ideas, you can afford to discard some of the non-commercial ideas and not feel sorry. The guy who has only a few ideas tends to hang on to them, with the result that he tries out every one of his ideas and thus wastes time and energy. Invariably, when I sit down and think of designing something, I think of, maybe, 15 different approaches before I do anything further with them. I sit in aeroplanes and draw on napkins, and give the napkins to the secretaries and they laugh. But after I have gone through that exercise in my mind, I have eliminated most of the non-commercial possibilities, at least in my own thinking.
I have a capacity that I can visualize a full machine and register it in my mind and retain it for some time. It will be there. I turn back, move to another part of the machine, then go back again and do it as if it were a drawing. Sometimes I have to move my hand back and forth as if I am sketching to put a part in focus. This visualizing capacity is very important in referring to concepts. You have to be able to eliminate the non-proving opportunities.
At night I have a pad on my bedside, and often, in the middle of the night, I sit up and put down an idea or sketch that comes suddenly. There are two important issues. First is to come up with concepts; second is to be able to evaluate their commercial feasibility in your mind without really trying out any idea in sketching.
Writer: Before being successful, though, you have got to have some management framework and direction within which this can take place, don't you?
Khan: Are you talking about manufacturing or institution management?
Writer: I am talking about management of an organization that is coming up with concepts.
Khan: Well, I am talking about individuals. It is an individual's mind which comes up with an idea. In fact, if you think that a group can develop a machine... well, they can design it, but a group seldom produces the concept; it is always an individual. The group can design it, yes, but not conceptualize a machine.
Writer: What do you think would be the impact on your ability to get good, practical engineers, the type of Filipino engineers you want working for you, if you had to pay salaries half of what industry pays? This is what most LDE research institutions are faced with. How do your salaries compare with industry salaries?
Khan: Ours is about the same as industry. Some of our engineers are saying that it is low right now, and we are hoping to give them a raise this year. But certainly I would say that our engineers are very well paid in comparison with public-sector organizations. I am sure that engineers in government institutions in the Philippines, with similar experience, are drawing less.
However, the engineers that you see working in the public sector are more often a different breed altogether. They are not the type who could handle this type of work. They are all right in their own way. They probably come in as fresh graduates, have good grades, and after joining the institution become part of the government system for most of their lives.
Writer: What about the Singapore Institute of Standard and Industrial Research? That is a government organization.
Khan: I am impressed with what it has been doing. I think again Lee Cum Tat's leadership is far more important to that organization than the other individuals working in the Institute. I do believe that leadership plays the most important role in the service of a research organization, more so than other types of institutions.
If you have a leader who knows what he is doing and can channel the young staff in the right direction, one can get somewhere. If you don't have that leadership, no matter what you do, even if you get the best people on your staff, it will be difficult to have a successful programme. Leadership, to me, is above all, and can make or break an institution. I am not saying that the rest of the team is not important; the rest of the team is important because the execution of the projects fall in their laps. But if you look at the research successes, invariably one finds strong leadership and someone who pushes and inspires the team.
Writer: Let me mention a second factor that a number of the directors of these institutions suggest inhibits them, and get your reactions. This is that the red tape involved in being in a government system - for example, with respect to accounting practices - is most inhibitive. Is it worse than what you have to face?
Khan: Very much worse. That certainly is an important bottleneck. Let me, however, go back to the matter of pay. I am not saying that pay for the staff is not an important issue, I think low pay certainly inhibits getting the best people. What I am trying to say is that if you get a live-wire individual into a stagnant organization, he can get much more done. The red tape is a problem but it is still a small factor. You can take some of the engineers in their institutions and inspire them to the extent that they can do excellent work. It is not so difficult if you can show and direct them properly. But if the leadership does not understand what it is looking for, most junior staff will not respect or follow the leadership.
Our engineers come to us and say, 'Today I am not getting anywhere; I have got problems; can you solve them?' If I can't solve them right away, what does he do? He hangs around the department doing nothing, wasting his time, complaining. I must come up with a workable answer. So I say, 'What you are trying is not working; try this other way.' One has to be sharp enough to come back immediately with a workable solution. These are some of the things that are important.
What the LDE institution directors complain about are legitimate issues, but they seldom complain about the lack of leadership. I think the root of the problem in most cases is that the industrial institution leader often does not fully understand the real needs. They have no commercial experience, and have little experience in doing the type of job that they have to do; they are by and large academically oriented. We have hired a few highly academic people in our department and find they just cannot do a damn thing involving new machines. They can usually conduct tests, and that is about all.
Let me give you one of my final views about creativity. If you find a person who has a very strong memory, he will remember everything. Many filing clerks I have known are this way. If you tell them that ten years ago you received a letter, they can tell exactly what the letter said, where it is kept, and bring it out in a minute. Such persons are extremely poor in creativity. I believe that when you have a poor memory, you forget past approaches. Every time you are faced with a problem you think about it fresh and try to find a solution. You have no ready workable solution to go to immediately, nothing to pull up from the memory stack. So, I believe, poor memory seems to help creativity.
Writer: Why is IRRI successful compared with many of the applied research institutions that one finds in LDEs?
Duff: I believe one reason is that we are closely attuned to the problems. We are certainly working on applied research and development problems here, not basic research. By focusing on existing problems, we are trying to tailor designs to those needs and by being field-oriented we can see very quickly whether or not the work is effective. I think our criterion for success is whether or not the designs are used, and not how many designs we produce. Using this criterion within a commercial environment, it is considerably more important for us to be responsive to what farmers need and what is profitable for manufacturers to produce than it might be to an academic institution or a basic-research-oriented group.
Writer: Well, the institutions I am talking about are supposed to be neither basic research nor academically oriented. They are - or are at least supposed to be - involved with the applied scientific and technological problems facing their countries. One of their major issues, if not the major one, is to aid in the industrialization of their countries.
Duff: I can only mention those issues which I feel are important. One, at IRRI we don't have to run after money 40% of the time. From our perspective, if we had to spend 20% of our time lobbying for funding, it would certainly seriously cut down the effectiveness of the programme. Two, there have been few constraints on our selection of design projects. Those criteria we use are very pragmatic and flexible. Three, we have had access to what I consider to be excellent staff here to carry out research, design and development work.
Writer: On this point, have you had any trouble retaining your staff? Is there much of a turnover?
Duff: Yes, there is considerable turnover. We have lost quite a number of good people, although not usually to local competitors. Many people have emigrated from the Philippines after being a part of this programme. There are two or three engineers that are in the USA. In the case of economists, most of whom are young, we encourage them to move up, and the only way they can do that, of course, is to go on to graduate school or into an institution where their upward mobility is not constrained as it is here. While our department's turnover has probably been above average for IRRI as a whole, I still believe we have been able to maintain an excellent staff.
Writer: Are your salaries commensurate with industry?
Duff: Right now, I don't believe they are. I think we have fallen behind recently. We are also not commensurate with competitive government agencies. When I first arrived, in 1970, we were very competitive with industry, but during the last two years we have failed to adjust to the increased cost of living and demand for engineering talent. Many private industries have responded very quickly to this situation, and the government has also raised salaries. We have tended to tailor our responses to those of the government, and after the fact in many cases. We don't take the initiative.
Writer: Do you think government agencies, like the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), are any better than IRRI?
Duff: No, not NIST. A company like the San Miguel Corporation or Bayer Chemical Company, and, for example, a government economics organization like NEDA or the Development Academy of the Philippines probably would have somewhat higher salaries.
Writer: Is NEDA a civil service organization?
Duff: Groups like NEDA are semi-autonomous. I don't know precisely why, but they pay considerably better than most government departments. NEDA might pay an economist 2 000 pesos a month. We look at the same person, and although I am willing to pay as much as NEDA, we often cannot get that figure through the personnel office because of the restrictions on salary levels in effect at that time.
In engineering, for example, we might pay an engineer 1 600 pesos a month. Industry may pay 3 000 to 4 000 pesos for someone in about the same category. Despite this, however, we have still been able to maintain a good staff, largely because of the nature of the programme and the credibility of the Institute.
Writer: Besides your ability to obtain good staff, can you suggest reasons for your success?
Duff: Even though IRRI itself is not industry oriented, its reputation certainly opens doors that would otherwise be closed. For example, in Myanmar, where IRRI does not yet have a formal programme in engineering, the government invited IRRI to send a team to assess their rice production research needs. I went along as a part of that team and looked at engineering as a peripheral part of the assessment. As a result of the visit, however, it appears that we will become involved more quickly in engineering development than we will in a plant breeding programme. These kinds of indirect avenues have helped measurably in making initial contacts and securing the necessary local support to make the programme go.
Writer: Are there things that you can think of that have aided in the commercialization of your designs and your success with this? Let us say, thinking in terms of things that might be of interest to LDE applied research institutions. Can you think of things they might do that would make them motivated? Having commercialized technology yourself and having seen a lot of work in developing countries, would you comment on this?
Duff: I don't completely understand the mandate of some of the institutions: is it oriented towards providing product designs, or assistance, or contract research, or other objectives? The focus will probably vary from institution to institution. We, of course, are working with a broad market base - the farm sector - which represents a large potential demand in all developing countries. The types of products that we develop are items that can hopefully be used by a large number of small farmers. So at least the potential market seems to be quite large. Perhaps taking a look at the market to determine where the priority needs are would be a first step in getting an industrial research institute to produce useful and meaningful results. Also, keeping a commercial orientation in view would help.
Writer: I think the type of research institutions that I have in mind have the same type of markets available to them, but in addition I think they are much broader. I think IRRI is much more narrowly focused. For example, often they have engineering equipment departments which are primarily involved in developing or fabricating equipment. Most can work in agricultural areas, but they are by no means limited to this.
Duff: Many people think the narrow focus at IRRI has been a major factor in achieving success, and certainly I think we, in our own programme, feel that too. We have not tried to work on more than one crop. It has been rice and the problems associated with rice. This has allowed us to concentrate our efforts a good deal.
The programme is not large, so we are not all over the ball park in the development of product designs. I think most engineers have as much as - and maybe more work than -they can effectively handle. Administratively, it has about reached the limits I think, using the current configuration. If we add another man and we increase staff work 20%, there will need to be some changes in the administration of the programme. We will just be getting too big in that way. Having a relatively small programme allows you to be responsive. Everybody knows what everyone else is doing. There is a great deal of interplay. We minimize the red tape involved in making decisions, having designs translated into hardware, etc. I think these kinds of advantages have helped appreciably. Having Amir Khan to head the programme has also been a decided asset at this point in the development of the programme.
Writer: Has he been largely responsible for most of the concepts?
Duff: As a rough estimate, around 60% originated with him. Others came from the engineers themselves. The power tiller, for example, is a design that was evolved by a Filipino. The low land seeder was one of Nester Navasero's developments.
The real question people ask me is: Do you think the programme would survive or continue if Amir were not here? This is just a personal judgment. I think now that it would go on. It now has a great deal of momentum of its own. It is not merely reflective of Amir's presence or absence. The conception of the programme, the execution of the early design and development work, the formalization of the technology transfer mechanism - these are truly his contributions. Without them, we certainly would not have a programme of the type or nature as the current one.
Writer: Let me ask you this. Do you think that some of the techniques that you have used here, such as really getting to know the market, designing your equipment around local production capability, and the availability of the imported material, were important? Another, for example, was your concept of initially contracting production for several prototypes from some of the most interested manufacturers to minimize their risk in their first ventures into this new field.
Duff: That is right. Priming the pump was a vital concept at the early stage.
Writer: Well, now that some of these techniques have been worked out, do you think that someone else could take a similar programme to another part of the world and implement it? Or, would it still require someone with the capabilities of Amir? Would you still have to combine with the approach the ability to conceptualize a product to meet the market, or could you go out and find that type of talent and incorporate it into a programme?
Duff: I don't think it would require quite the same kind of talent that Amir has, although it would require a degree of his enthusiasm and ambition. The ideas embodied in the format that we use here are transferable, at least in the agricultural area. Maybe in other areas of industrial research as well.
While it might seem self-evident, it is also important to have capable people. You would have to have capable people in any successful programme. They would, however, probably not have to have the same kind of unique qualifications Amir has. We have asked ourselves, for example can this format be used in India to develop dryland equipment for a different set of farming circumstances and a new set of problems? We think it can, it could be set up there and used effectively. It could also be applied if one were concerned with making containers, or something like cheap, food processing equipment. Looking at the basic concepts, they seem sound.
Writer: I think the major differences... some of the industrial research institutions are doing identical sorts of things. They are aimed at identical sorts of markets. I see the market you are aimed at as an end user, someone buying something to help him in his job. There are many of these people out here. On the other hand, trying to produce or commercialize a pilot process for using canned coconut milk, you have a different type of market to deal with. In fact, this may even be an export market. So the markets can be considerably different. But you need to know what the market is. You need to know if there is a market.
Duff: You are right. What you have described are basically producer goods, or capital goods that are used to produce something else. They are not an end product themselves. To make such goods successful, however, you must find out what consumers can afford, what should be the characteristics of the machine to make it profitable, etc. And on the manufacturing side, when you are designing a machine, it is important to keep in mind how it can be produced (without making a sophisticated, very efficient design) in a country like the Philippines, using low volume, labour intensive processes.
Writer: In the USA or Europe, I don't think designers are faced with nearly this problem, because you can identify a need, design a piece of equipment to meet that need, and the technology and production capability will exist to produce the equipment.
Duff: Here you are talking about a restricted economy that has a ceiling on the range of technology that is available to produce goods.
In August 1967, Dr Amir U. Khan arrived at IRRI to direct the activities of AED. With him he brought an approach to the design, development, adaptation and commercialization of agricultural equipment that has since come to be known as the IRRI approach. In considering use of this approach in the commercialization of agricultural technology by other institutions, it would be useful to examine in some detail what the IRRI approach is, the type of equipment that was developed with it, and the resources and time needed for its accomplishments. This should give us insight into the nature of a programme that has good probability of success in other developing economies.
Institutions often tend to underestimate the amount of effort required to accomplish programmes. Therefore, IRRI's accomplishment during the first three years of Dr Khan's association with it are specifically examined. Three years is often the period provided for relatively large programmes.
Characteristics of the IRRI team
Table 1 lists the positions in AED/IRRI in mid-1967 and mid-1970, showing the increase over a three-year span. By mid-1975, the programme employed 43 persons. Dr Khan took a pragmatic and business-like approach to the design and development activities. To be successful meant to have their designs commercialized. Dr Khan has noted that the engineers he hired have all been very practical. Their academic grades may not have been all that high, but they knew how to fix things.
Table 1 Staff positions in AED/IRRI in 1967 and 1970
|
1967 Posts |
No. |
1970 Posts |
No. |
|
Agricultural Engineer |
1 |
Development Engineer |
1 |
|
Agricultural Economist |
1 |
Evaluation Engineer |
1 |
|
Agricultural Engineer (consultant) |
1 |
Agricultural Economist |
1 |
|
Asst. Agricultural Engineer |
1 |
Consultant |
1 |
|
Visiting Asst. Design Engineer |
1 |
Asst. Design Engineer |
3 |
|
Junior Technician |
2 |
Asst. Test Engineer |
2 |
|
Draughtsman |
1 |
Research Asst. (Economics) |
1 |
|
Research Aid |
1 |
Research Asst. (Engineering) |
3 |
|
Machinist |
1 |
Draughtsman |
2 |
|
Diesel Mechanic |
1 |
Secretary |
3 |
|
Tractor Operator |
1 |
Shop Foreman |
1 |
|
Tinsmith |
1 |
Machinist |
2 |
|
Welder |
1 |
Tinsmith |
2 |
|
Secretary |
1 |
Welder |
1 |
|
Clerk-Stenographer |
1 |
Mechanic-Operator |
1 |
|
Labourer |
7 |
Shop Mechanic |
4 |
|
|
|
Labourer (Shop helper) |
3 |
|
|
|
Labourer (Student Asst.) |
1 |
|
TOTAL |
23 |
TOTAL |
33 |
Characteristics of the IRRI-designed equipment
All AED/IRRI-designed machinery has been aimed at some phase of rice production, harvesting or processing. The equipment has primarily been designed for the market represented by small and modest-sized farms. The equipment has been designed around the metalworking capabilities of firms in the Philippines. If something had to be imported, such as a motor, the machinery was designed to use an imported input that was readily available in the Philippine market. There were two 'golden rules' that Dr Khan set down for his engineers: keep it simple, and keep it inexpensive.
Table 2 lists the agricultural equipment projects that IRRI worked on the first three years (1967-70) that Dr Khan ran the programme. Of these, three had reached a degree of commercial success by 1975. Only one, the rotary power weeder, reached a commercially successful stage by mid-1970, and this was in a developed country, namely Japan. The weeder has never been commercially successful in the Philippines.
Table 2 Evaluation of AED/IRRI equipment projects active in the period 1967-1970
|
Equipment project |
Year work initiated |
IRRI project status/assessment in 1975 |
|
Tractor PTO-driven thresher |
1965 |
continuing |
|
Drum-type thresher |
1967 |
unsuccessful |
|
Table-type thresher |
1967 |
unsuccessful |
|
Rotary weeder |
1967 |
highly successful |
|
Anhydrous ammonia applicator |
1967 |
experimental |
|
Paddy stripper harvester |
1968 |
continuing |
|
Rotary harrow |
1968 |
experimental |
|
Row seeder |
1968 |
fairly successful |
|
Rotary screen grain cleaner |
1969 |
unsuccessful |
|
Heated sand dryer |
1969 |
continuing |
|
Rice hull furnace |
1970 |
fairly successful |
Most effort during the first three years was placed on developing a thresher. This activity led in mid-1971 to the initiation, design and development of an axial-flow thresher. This thresher went into commercial production in mid-1973 - eight years after IRRI initiated work on producing a commercially viable thresher.
The IRRI approach
Figure 1 shows the innovation process for the six IRRI machines that IRRI considers to have had the greatest degree of commercial success out of 35 equipment development projects it has undertaken. These are the axial-flow thresher, the rotary power weeder, the tractor lug wheels, the rice-hull furnace, the batch dryer and the tiller. As can be seen from Figure 1, the innovation process had a different pattern in each case. The important point to recognize is that the IRRI approach has been more of a philosophy that stresses the importance of the market, compatibility of designs with local manufacturing capability and local materials, close relationships with the manufacturers, and carrying the innovation process far enough so that market uncertainties are reduced to acceptable proportions for the manufacturers to pick them up. The last requirement has normally meant providing the manufacturer with a readily marketable product.
While IRRI has not, until quite recently, undertaken formal and systematic market studies prior to initiating design and development activities, the market has always been a prime consideration. As Dr Khan has pointed out, he, at least in his own mind, has a market identified for each project IRRI undertakes to develop. This analysis of the market is a continuous process. It is not something that is done once and forgotten.
Likewise, IRRI has not undertaken formal systematic world searches for technology when it identifies a market. However, IRRI staff travel extensively, and are made aware of most concepts for equipment in areas where IRRI is interested. In fact, at least four of IRRI's most successful designs would have to be called modifications or adaptations of existing equipment.
Perhaps the thing that differentiates the IRRI approach more than anything else from the approaches of many LDE agricultural equipment design, development and adaptation units is the close and continuous relationship that the IRRI staff members maintain with local light engineering firms. This consists of much more than visiting a firm as part of an extension strategy to have a new design commercialized. IRRI staff are continually dropping in on metalworking firms to exchange ideas and see what is happening. These visits are now in both directions, with industry people visiting IRRI perhaps as much as in the other direction. In many cases today, when IRRI wishes to introduce a new piece of equipment to industry, it finds itself talking to an old friend. It has not always been this way, however. To reach the present state of affairs required a conscious and protracted effort on the part of IRRI.
Figure 1 The innovation process for six of AED/IRRI's most successful projects
As noted, IRRI attempts to reduce market uncertainty to a level that is acceptable to industry. In some cases, this has led to IRRI purchasing the first few units of an item of equipment from several firms to give the firms experience with constructing the equipment, and possibly bearing the expenses for limited tooling-up in some cases. Figure 1 shows that this procedure of incentive production was followed in two of the six cases in which IRRI has been most successful. This procedure may also provide for a limited test of the market, as IRRI, at least in the past, has permitted the firms to sell the equipment IRRI has ordered if the firms receive other offers. There has been some criticism of this, however, on the basis that these first machines often have defects in them, and buyers become disappointed and give the equipment a bad name.
By and large, it has been the firms that have produced the IRRI equipment that have also marketed and popularized it. In the three most successful instances, in terms of numbers sold, the market was developed and largely dominated by a single large firm. The rotary power weeder market was developed by Ohtake Nouki Seisakusho Company Ltd of Japan. None of the weeders has been commercially produced by firms in the Philippines. The five-to-seven horsepower tiller market was popularized by Marsteel Corporation, a large Philippine corporation with a nationwide marketing network. Over 60% of the tillers are estimated to have been manufactured and sold by Marsteel. The tractor lug wheel market was developed by GA Machineries Inc., a large Filipino firm that serves large farms and is a distributor for Ford tractors in the Philippines.
To summarize, AED/IRRI has been successful in its ability to design, develop and commercialize equipment that is LDE-appropriate. To do this, however, practical, clearheaded leadership was necessary: a fairly large team working on a relatively narrow range of problems over a period of years and a close relationship with industry that was also developed over a period of years. This raises two questions:
Would a similar approach work in other parts of the world?
Would a similar approach work with other technologies?
