Santa Clara

October 2001

The first business trip for Class III included visits to Applied Materials and Visx, and participation in the PDMA's 2001 International Conference. At Applied Materials, the world's largest manufacturer of processing equipment for the semiconductor industry, students were given a tour and heard from Directors of Product Engineering, Industry/Market Research, Corporate Marketing Communications, and Core Technologies, on a wide range of topics. An interesting area of focus was applied research, including partnerships with universities and customers, and how Applied Materials integrates this early-stage work into their commercialization process. At Visx, worldwide leader in laser systems for vision correction, students met with co-founder and RIT graduate, Terry Clapham, and received an extensive tour of the facility in Santa Clara. Terry epitomizes the "entrepreneurial engineer" and product development leader, one who combines outstanding engineering competence with vision, perseverance, and an ability to straddle business and engineering. He reviewed approaches to commercializing new concepts, based on experience at Visx and other ventures in Silicon Valley. Students received a historical overview of the company, including discussions of IP, technology feasibility, customer migration, and scale-up of the organization. Terry underscored the importance of attention to systems issues, given the diversity of technology and business issues spanned by complex devices. Highlights of the PDMA conference included: Bruce Claxton (Motorola) on "Design, Speed, and Expression," Kevin Ley (Medronics) on "Simplifying the Portfolio Planning Process," Warren Butler (Bank of America) on "Innovation at Retail Banking Centers," Tom Kelly (Ideo) on "The Art of Innovation," Jerry Lee (Goodrich) on "Enterprise-Wide Innovation," Markus Seidel (BMW) on "Innovation Management at BMW," and Stefan Thomke (Harvard) on "Enlightened Experimentation -- New Imperative for Innovation.