Information Gap between Technology Specialists and Decision Makers

There is a clear information gap between technology specialists on one side and managers and decision makers on another one. While the representatives of the first group usually think about technology from strictly technological point of view, the representatives of the latter mentioned group often require clear and sound financial justification of respective projects in order to make the right and well-founded investment decision. Universities educating technology specialists as well as managers and decision makers should try their best to prepare their graduates to be able to facilitate mutually beneficial discussion of the representatives of the above mentioned groups. To illustrate some common problems arising within the respective decision making processes we are going to present here the relevant parts of our research in the field of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). We hope that by drawing the attention to these issues and by offering some remedies to them we can help our students to be better prepared for their jobs.