INTRODUCING TECHNOLOGY TIMELINE INTERPRETATION

TO TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION AND MATURITY ANALYSIS AS

APPLIED TO DIFFERENT INDUSTRIAL SECTORS
Steve Wunderlich and Tarek Khalil

University of Miami

Abstract: Technology diffusion is a measure of how much a technology has been adopted by a market.
This is in contrast to technology maturity, which is a measurement of how a technology has progressed
versus a physical limit such as the speed of light. Technology diffusion measures the percentage that the
market has adopted the technology. Diffusion data by nature indicates what is occurring or what has
occurred. But it is the technology forecast, which purports to portray what is likely to occur, that we are
most interested in.

In this paper we will look at technology timelines and describe a methodology to extract explicit diffusion
data to analyze with Fisher-Pry equations and compare rates of diffusion. The technology timelines that we
will look at represent different industrial sectors, such as transportation, communication, and utilities. The
timelines used are listed on the WWW as “The 20 Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century”
(GEA) (NAE, 2000) and include technologies such as electrification, telephony, and farm mechanization.
Comparisons between the interpreted GEA timeline data and actual data from the U.S. Census Bureau
(Kurian, 2000) appear to have validity. In addition, it appears that diffusion rates vary with industrial
sector. This is our first attempt to identify significant characteristics of industrial sectors using timeline
data. The results need to be refined but the initial approach warrants further study.

Keywords: Technology diffusion, timeline, S-curve, industrial sector, Fisher-Pry

Introduction
Technology Timelines

Within Industrial Engineering, Management of Technology, and the business world in general there exists
an interest to forecast the rate at which new technologies are or will be adopted. Martino (2002) lists
environmental scanning, modeling, Delphi, and chaos theory among the methods employed over the past
ten years for analyzing technology forecasting. He shows that recent innovations in stochastic methods
have provided methods previously unavailable. But one method that has not been considered is related to
timeline. Timeline event summaries are often available for many major technologies and provide a ready
source of information that can be interpreted with some value to help understand previous technology
adoption and perhaps provide an additional tool for technology forecasting.

Technology Diffusion and Technical Maturity

The maturity of a technology can be reflected in curves of technology progress or diffusion. Diffusion is
the measure of how much a potential market has adopted the technology. The measure of technology
progress or of diffusion may be expressed in percent and can be characterized over time by the Fisher-Pry
equation. Two characteristics of the Fisher-Pry equation (L / (1 + e**(-b(t-a))) ) reveal 1) the midpoint in time
( “a”) at which the market achieved 50% adoption, and, 2) a relative quantification of the rate ( “b” ) that
the technology was adopted. Another way to evaluate technology maturity is using technical maturity,
which comparatively uses a technical ideal or limit as its one hundred percent point. Technical limits can

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be definable in terms of an absolute limit such as the speed of sound but can also be unbounded such as
miles per gallon of fuel consumed. In this paper we are primarily interested in measuring technology
maturity through technology diffusion.

Technology S-Curves

Technology S-curves are well known and typically used to portray new technology as it progresses from
concept to onset of production, through rapid growth, to the onset of maturity and finally saturation. The
Fisher-Pry equation was developed to help analyze, characterize, and compare S-curves. Obtaining data
explicit enough to use Fisher-Pry and conduct reduction analyses can be challenging. Once the data is
available, however, Fisher-Pry becomes a useful tool to communicate the data. Other mathematical tools
that are similar to Fisher-Pry, but not utilized here, include Gompertz and Pearl-Reed equations.

Interpolations, Comparisons, Correlations

Industrial Sectors and Technologies

For this paper, three industrial sectors were gleened from 20 (U.S.A.) “Greatest Engineering Feats of the
20th Century” listed by the National Academy of Engineering and shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1 – Greatest Engineering Achievements of 20th Century (U.S.A.)

(www.greatachievements.org/greatachievements/index.html )

1. Electrification 2. Automobile
3. Airplane 4. Water Supply and Distribution
5. Electronics 6. Radio and Television
7. Agricultural Mechanization 8. Computers
9. Telephone 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
11. Highways 12. Spacecraft
13. Internet 14. Imaging
15. Household Appliances 16. Health Technologies
17. Petroleum & Petrochemical Technologies 18. Laser and Fiber Optics
19. Nuclear Technologies 20. High-performance Materials

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) provides timeline summaries for these twenty engineering
achievements that also represent technologies and they were reviewed for industrial sector commonality. It
was convenient to group them into three sectors; Transportation, Communication, and Utilities.

The transportation sector consists of easily identifiable technologies such as automobile, airplane, and
spacecraft. The communication sector also consists of easily identifiable technologies such as telephone,
radio & TV, and Internet, but also includes a few higher-level categories such as computer and electronics.
The utilities sector is broader than the first two and includes a few less exact categories such as health
technologies and household appliances, which are not quite as classic in the utility sense as electrification
and water supply. The 20 technologies and how they were grouped into the 3 industrial sectors are listed in
table 2 below.

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 Table 2- 20 Technologies vs. Industrial Sector

Technology Transportation Communication Utilities

1. Electrification X
2. Automobile X
3. Airplane X
4. Water Supply X
5. Electronics X
6. Radio and Television X
7. Agricultural Mech. X
8. Computers X
9. Telephone X
10. AC and Refrigeration X
11. Highways X
12. Spacecraft X
13. Internet X
14. Imaging X
15. Household Appliances X
16. Health Technologies X
17. Petroleum Tech. X
18. Laser and Fiber Optics X
19. Nuclear Technologies X
20. High-perf. Materials X X X

The NAE website provides a timeline and summary of major milestones for each of the twenty
technologies. The technology performance parameter extracted from these timelines is in many cases a
market growth or technology diffusion parameter. The timelines enable at least a rough estimate to be
made for the start of rapid growth and in some case the onset of maturity for each technology. Each
timeline was reviewed and “scored” from the website timeline data using the following methodology.

The scores were ranged from a low of 0 to a 100 percent, based on the Fisher-Pry equation for technology
diffusion. Since the GEA data is for the 20th century, an initial score was established for the year 1900. A
score of zero would indicate that the technology had not yet been thought of. For example, the start of
technology for laser and fiber optics moved from zero to a score of 1.0 when Einstein established a theory
of stimulated emission in 1917. More significantly, a score of 15 was assigned as the milestone indicating
rapid market growth was about to occur. It is assumed that at this point anyone who wants the technology
can now start to get the technology. A classic example of a 15 score would be for automobile technology
in 1908 with the beginning of Ford Model T mass production. Then, the area between 1 and 15 was
feathered in based on the early developmental milestones listed, such as the origination of mass production
techniques by Ransom E. Olds in 1901.

The significance of the 15-point milestone for technology diffusion is it indicates that rapid market growth
has been initiated and will sustain until it reaches another significant point, 85, which indicates the end of
rapid market growth. At this point the technology was judged to have achieved widespread diffusion such
that nearly everyone who wants the technology has now obtained the technology. Also, it was assumed
that technology diffusion between 15 and 85 points occurs at a fairly linear rate. This is supported
mathematically by looking at variations in the Fisher-Pry equation, which shows in Figure 1 below that for
a full range of rates (i.e. “b” ranges from 0 to 1) the period between 20 percent diffusion and 80 percent
diffusion are all nearly linear.

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 Figure 1 - Fisher Pry Equation: FP = Fisher Pry = L / (1 + e**(-b(t-a))) where “b” = technology diffusion rate

Fisher-Pry Rate Sensitivity - Parameter "b"

Parameter
“b”
0.8
0

0.02
0.7
0.04
Percent Diffusion

0.06
0.6
0.08

0.1

0.5 0.12

0.14

0.4 0.16

0.18

0.3 0.2

0.2
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year

For some of the technologies, the most difficult score to arrive at is for the year 2002. A score of 100
would indicate that a technology had reached complete diffusion or maturity. But for an aggregate
technology such as high performance materials this seems too difficult. The methodology applies better to
technologies that can be measured in terms of number of households using the technology, such as
electrification, which gives an accurate representation of technology diffusion.

Electrification is known to have reached nearly a nearly 100 percent level of diffusion in the U.S. as of the
year 2002. On the other hand, spacecraft does not lend itself to diffusion since the market can only be
defined at a federal-level at best. But in technical terms it seems to have obtained a high rate of maturity
because, for example the U.S. Space Shuttle has been operational approximately 25 years and has
established a standard of space transportation, which has not yet been replaced (nor is likely for at least
another 10 years).

Another reason for debate on the current level of maturity would be in the case of high-performance
materials. It was judged to be mature to a score of only 50 because there’s no telling how far along it is.
There is no easy way to measure something that has such aggregate, universal applications.

The assumed standard S-curve technology life cycle scoring summary is summarized in Table 3 below.

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 Table 3 – Standard Technology Life Cycle Scoring Summary

Technology Life Cycle Maturity Level Score

Solid concept/idea conceived 1
Rapid growth enabled 15
Peak growth, 50 percent diffusion 50
Rapid growth slows, market saturating 85
Market saturated, technology mature 100

The 20 GEA technology timelines were reviewed and scored using this standard scoring methodology.
Each technology was initially scored based on keywords in the timeline summaries for the key technology
cycle milestones of 1, 15, and 85, and estimated maturity at year 2002. The years between these milestones
were then filled in based on the significance of the other milestones. The primary characteristics for a
technology S-curve using the Fisher-Pry equation are determined primarily by the identification of the “15”
and the “85” milestones. They sometimes stand right out and are easy to determine from analysis of
timeline summaries. These key milestones for the 20 technologies are shown below in the Table 4.

Table 4 – Technology Life Cycle Scoring Summary

Technology 1-5 15 50 85 Year 2002

1. Electrification 1900 1927 1942 1960 99
2. Automobile 1900 1908 1934 1960 95
3. Airplane 1900 1927 1945 1965 95
4. Water Supply and Dist. 1900 1918 1935 1962 98
5. Electronics 1900 1947 1967 1985 90
6. Radio and Television 1900 1927 1954 1968 95
7. Agricultural Mech. 1900 1916 1943 1976 98
8. Computers 1900 1962 1985 2000 85
9. Telephone 1900 1915 1950 1961 98
10. AC and Refrigeration 1900 1925 1939 1975 90
11. Highways 1900 1940 1965 1985 90
12. Spacecraft 1900 1942 1963 1969 95
13. Internet 1958 1992 1997 1999 95
14. Imaging 1900 1940 1950 1965 95
15. Household Appliances 1905 1919 1955 1985 95
16. Health Technologies 1900 1927 2002 - 50
17. Petroleum Tech 1900 1920 1950 1965 98
18. Laser and Fiber Optics 1917 1975 1985 2002 85
19. Nuclear Technologies 1900 1945 1979 - 50
20. High-perf. Materials 1900 1935 1995 - 60

Discussion on Industrial Sectors

Transportation Sector

The growth spans, i.e. the no. of years between the initiation of rapid growth (score of 15) and the onset of
maturity (score of 85) were similar except for spacecraft, because it occurred in about half the time as the
other four. This no doubt was due primarily to a high level of government funding poured into the
programs during the race to the moon between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R and a much lower level at other
times. None of the other transportation technologies is known to have benefited from such intense funding
and priority in such a relatively short time.

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Most of the transportation technologies appear to have had WWI and/or WWII influences in their growth.
WWI helped to fuel the development of aircraft as did WWII. WWII also helped initiate the rapid growth
of spacecraft with the V2 rocket. The automobile appears to have enjoyed a surge in the U.S.A. in the post
WWII boom years.

All of the transportation technologies are considered to currently be mature, with 2002 scores of 90 or
above. This is because all have achieved near-market saturation in the U.S. or are considered to currently
have limitations in terms of available space, time, or laws of physics. All belong to global, corporate, and
governmental industrial bases and do not reside in the small business sector.

Communication Sector

The communication technologies growth spans were the quickest, with the Internet being the quickest.
Certainly it was enabled by the widespread availability of affordable and powerful personal computing
technology and an existing infrastructure in terms of telephone and electrical wiring not to mention an
existing operational intranet model residing within the U.S. department of defense.

Government funding surely pushed the growth of two of the technologies, imaging (radar) and lasers &
fiber optics. The growth of the others can largely be attributed to market pull by the consumer demand for
the products that they represent. Imaging is considered to be the only communication technology
significantly affected by a WW. It (radar) was a key technology pushed hard by both sides during WWII.
However, radio & TV are thought to have enjoyed rapid growth as a result of the post-war years and the
increased availability of leisure time in the U.S.

From a technology diffusion perspective, all of these technologies are considered mature but none may be
technically mature, yet.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the communication technologies is that they can readily integrated.
This can be seen in successive technologies such as the personal digital assistant market. Several
companies are now marketing PDA’s made with electronics that have computing power, telephone, and
wireless access to the Internet with TV and radio integration. There is at least the possibility that they may
integrate laser, fiber optics, or imaging technologies in the future.

Utilities Sector

The average growth spans are slowest for the utilities sector. But this sector is diluted with wide social
boundaries and aggregate effects compared to transportation and communication. For instance, nuclear and
health care technologies are hard to assess from either technology diffusion or a technical maturity
perspective. Health care is universal and constantly changing while nuclear technology might be
considered “on hold” for political reasons since the incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, with no
significant additional progress made since toward market saturation. Neither has an easily definable
maturity level.

Government and commercial support contributed to the growth of electrification, water supply, and nuclear
technologies. These utilities operated under close government regulation. Consumer demand for products
and services provided the market pull for AC & refrigeration, house appliances, health technologies and
farm mechanization. The utility technology that surely benefited most from a significant WW effect is
nuclear, which occurred during WWII weapons development.

Comparison Between Sectors

The technology diffusion rates tend to decrease as you move from the communications to the transportation
to the utilities sectors. This may follow from the fact that the products in the communication sector are
more recent, more personal, and more affordable than the other sectors. A cell phone may cost a few
hundred dollars while an automobile many thousands of dollars.

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 None of the technologies in any of the sectors was considered obsolete. Electrification is considered to be
very mature but it is not being replaced anytime soon and there is no estimation of a time when it will be
obsolete, because it is also a basic physical phenomenon.

Transportation growth in airplanes and spacecraft can generally be attributed to market push as having been
affected by WW priorities and/or government funding influences. In these cases, as well as a few in the
other sectors such as nuclear, radar, and laser, the push provided by governmental priority and funding
fueled an intense growth period. The market growth in the other utility and communications sector
technologies probably occurred due to market pull, created by consumer demand for automobiles,
computers, and similar personal items.

The table below compares and summarizes the GEA technologies using Fisher-Pry. The “a” indicates the
year which 50% diffusion or maturity occurred and “b” is the rate of diffusion, with a greater “b” equating
to a faster rate. A “b” of zero is “flat” while a “b” of 0.2 is nearly vertical for the given timeframe of the
20th century. Table 5 below indicates that technologies in the communication sector generally had faster
rates than those in the transportation sector, which generally had faster rates than those in the utility sector.

Table 5 – GEA Tecnologies/Industrial Sectors Sorted by Fisher-Pry Rate “b)

Technology Sector Equation R-squared Sum-of-Sq Std 'E a b

Internet Communication FP 0.59 0.22 1.69 1996 0.164
Spacecraft Transportation FP 0.87 0.19 0.95 1961 0.112
Imaging Communication FP 0.90 0.14 1.09 1951 0.097
Laser Optics Communication FP 0.74 0.06 1.46 1986 0.097
Computer Communication FP 0.93 0.02 0.62 1982 0.090
Electronics Utilities FP 0.90 0.03 0.78 1966 0.086
Electrification Utilities FP 0.92 0.05 0.85 1941 0.085
Petroleum All FP 0.95 0.09 0.95 1946 0.079
Airplane Transportation FP 0.93 0.06 1.17 1945 0.076
Telephone Communication FP 0.94 0.09 0.99 1945 0.076
Radio TV Communication FP 0.93 0.08 0.96 1951 0.076
Water Supply Utilities FP 0.91 0.07 1.03 1937 0.073
Highways Transportation FP 0.93 0.04 0.79 1964 0.071
Automobile Transportation FP 0.91 0.06 1.27 1934 0.064
Farm Mechanization Utilities FP 0.97 0.01 0.41 1944 0.061
Air Cond & Refrig Utilities FP 0.93 0.15 1.96 1944 0.059
House Appliances Utilities FP 0.98 0.02 3.41 1954 0.057
Nuclear Utilities FP 0.91 0.27 2.73 1984 0.037
Hi Perform Materials All FP 0.99 0.07 2.54 1985 0.032
Health Technologies Utilities FP 0.99 0.06 3.10 1992 0.028

FP = Fisher Pry = L / (1 + e**(-b(t-a)))

Technology S-Curve plots of the 20 GEA technologies generated from the timeline summaries are
displayed in Figure 2 below.

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 Figure 2 – S-Curve Plots of the 20 GEA Technologies

20 Greatest Engineering Feats of 20th

1 Electrification
Century - Technology Life Cycles 2 Automobile
100.0
3 Airplane

4 Water Supply
90.0
5 Electronics

80.0
Tech Performance Parameter

6 Radio & TV

7 Farm Mech
70.0 8 Computers

9 Telephone
60.0
10 AC & Refrig.

50.0 11 Highw ays

12 Spacecraft
40.0 13 Internet

14 Imaging
30.0
15 House
Appliance
20.0 16 Health Tech

17 Petroleum
Tech
10.0 18 Laser, Fiber
Opt
19 Nuclear Tech
0.0
20 Hi-Perf Mat'ls
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Year

Anchoring with Actual Data

Within the past ten years there has been significant progress in technology forecasting using stochastic
methods and other techniques (Martino, 2002). Credibility can start to be established for the timeline
methodology described above if the interpreted data can be correlated to real, actual data. For this purpose,
actual data was obtained through Datapedia (i.e. U.S. Census data) and the Wall Street Journal sources.
Comparisons were made for radio & TV, electrification, telephone, and farm mechanization (tractors). The
data is shown in Plots 1 through 4 on the pages following the Wall Street Journal data below.

Time for New technologies to reach 25% of the US Population

• Household electricity (1873) 46 years
• Telephone (1875) 35 years
• Automobile (1885) 55 years
• Airplane travel (1903) 54 years
• Radio (1906) 22 years
• Television (1925) 26 years
• Videocassette recorder (1952) 34 years
• Personal computer (1975) 15 years
• Cellular phone 13 years
• World Wide Web 7 years
Source: The Wall Street Journal, June 1997

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 Plot No.1 – Radio, TV

Radio & TV

GEA Radio TV Datapedia Radio

Wall St. Journal Datapedia TV

120

100

80
Percent Diffusion

60

40

20

0
1900

1906

1912

1918

1924

1930

1936

1942

1948

1954

1960

1966

1972

1978

1984

1990

1996

2002
Year

Plot No.2 - Electrification

Electrification

GEA Electrification Datapedia Elect Wall St Journal

1.2

0.8
Percent Diffusion

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
1900

1906

1912

1918

1924

1930

1936

1942

1948

1954

1960

1966

1972

1978

1984

1990

1996

2002

Year

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 Plot No.3 - Telephone

Telephone

GEA Telephone Datapedia Telephone W all St. Journal

120

100

80
Percent Diffusion

60

40

20

1990

1996

2002
1900

1906

1912

1918

1924

1930

1936

1942

1948

1954

1960

1966

1972

1978

1984
Ye a r

Plot No.4 – Farm Mechanization

Farm Mechanization, Tractors

GEA Farm Mech Datapedia Tractors

120

100

80
Percent Diffusion

60

40

20

0
1900

1906

1912

1918

1924

1930

1936

1942

1948

1954

1960

1966

1972

1978

1984

1990

1996

2002

Year

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Conclusions
Even though the GEA S-curve data generated using the timeline methodology does not exactly line up with
the actual data there appears to be enough validity to warrant additional study. The methodology to
interpret technology timeline data also needs refinement but the initial attempt indicates this is worthy. A
next step would be correlations of the actual data curves to the GEA data with Fisher-Pry or other
technology S-curve equations to compare midpoints and rates.

Also, the interpreted data indicates that different industrial sectors have differing rates of diffusion, or
maturity. Sectors with faster rates, such as computers and the Internet appear to have more readily
produced and more personally usable products, more individually affordable prices, or having benefited
from government subsidies. Slower adapting technologies appear to be associated with increasing costs,
usability on a large social scale and likely to require large infrastructure or legislative support. While some
of these factors that contribute to the rate differences seem obvious they need additional study.

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Manufacturing, Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RX

Corrocher, Nicoletta (2002), The Diffusion of Internet Telephony Among Consumers and Firms – Current
Issues and Future Prospects, Elsevier Science Inc, Science Direct

Hayward, John (2003), Diffusion Models, University of Glamorgan, Wales,

http://www.glam.ac.uk/sot/doms/Notes/Systems/diffusion.php

Khalil, T. (2000), Management of Technology – The Key to Competitiveness and Wealth Creation,
McGraw-Hill, U.S.A.

Kurian, George Thomas (2000), Datapedia of the United States 1790 – 2000, America Year by Year,
Bernan Press, Lanham, MD, U.S.A. ISBN: 0-89059-012-5

Mann, Darrell L. (2002), Better Technology Forecasting Using Systematic Innovation Methods, Elsevier
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Mignogna, Richard T. (2001), Introduction to Technology Trend Analysis, part 3, TEMI e-Newsletter for
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National Academy of Engineering, (2000), Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century,
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U.S. Bureau of the Census, “No.1 Population and Area: 1790 to 1990, “ 1990 Census of Population and
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