Technology Transfer in Iraq
By Rick Nardo, LFM ‘03
December 14, 2005
Editor's Note: One of the reasons Rick Nardo enrolled in MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) program was his desire to influence social and economic change in underdeveloped countries as a technically competent production facility manager. Nardo, who graduated from LFM in 2003, is currently is a Captain in the US Army stationed in Iraq. (Lois Slavin, ESD Communications Director)
We just completed a major project involving technology transfer to the Iraqis so they can start a couple of factories to produce a line of products that will help us help them.
Rick Nardo (left), LFM '03, confers with a colleague
The product, something that all Iraqis need in their homes, is simple to manufacture with steps involving grating, sifting, mixing, stamping, firing and painting. It also involves very manual processes, which is good for job creation -- one of our coalition's goals. It has a good profit margin (over 50%, if capital is well-managed) and develops new capabilities in a new industry (economic sector development is another coalition goal). Once the factory is online and we distribute the product, it will take the pressure off of me and other coalition members who work on water quality.
But even if the technology is simple, the bureaucracy is not. For example, in this project we:
- Spent over 5 months, considerable money (tens of thousands of dollars - a significant amount of money over here), and countless man hours for the entire leadership team;
- Worked with people from the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office for oil and water resources, countless unit commanders, three civil affairs companies, Iraqi police and military transition teams, not to mention several murktahs, sheiks, and a bunch of poor Iraqi citizens who just wanted cleaner water;
- Wrote two funding requests, one proposal, a field manual, over 50 PowerPoint slides (which makes me an expert by most consulting standards), and over 300 emails;
- Conducted more than 20 patrols to speak to three Iraqi mayors, assess water at over 10 locations, visit pottery makers at four sites, and search out three potential factory locations;
- Interviewed seven Iraqi potential business owners;
- Set up two fully functional training sites to transfer technology (well… 1.5 really… the first one was missing some equipment - but it failed due to social reasons before training started);
- Hired one consultant from the US to come to Iraq to teach us the technology, and several Iraqi "gophers" (for lack of a better name. basically people who are good at finding things; and a couple of interpreters;
- Made many visits to three welders, two plumbers, one electrician, one HVAC repair man, two carpenters;
- Made 10 visits to the dumps at three forward operating bases;
- Shipped equipment from the U.S. to Baghdad, asked my Lieutenant, “Renegade,” to drive down the most dangerous highway in the world to pick them up and bring them to location #1 (which failed), begged and pleaded (good leadership skills) for 3 months to have the same equipment shipped to location #2 for training (which succeeded).
So, you should not be surprised that we cried when the first successful product rolled off the line at our training facility!!! We trained two independent Iraqis on how to run and setup the business, helped them establish the financial structure, marketing, widget production, quality control and distribution. The Iraquis were very engaged, asked great business management questions, and have spent some of their own cash to get this facility off the ground. I believe they are very much on the ball and can take this further here than we ever could.
We have created a factory startup manual that details the factory layout, equipment list with costs, and the step-by-step process (with pictures of our training the Iraqis). Our plan is replicate this over and over to several groups around the country, each employing 5-7 folks per factory plus another 3-7 folks to handle the supply chain. It's not quite BusinessWeek material, but it is a start.
So far there are no tangible results, but we are close. Hope to have the first factory produce FGSP (first good saleable product) by 15 Jan 2006. I already have three offers to start plants elsewhere.
The project has not been overly technical; however it has been heavily focused on leadership. I have carried around few PowerPoint slides to explain the vision and the concept to military and civilian leadership to constantly garner support. I have found when you are knowledgeable about the project and people catch your enthusiasm, they take a genuine interest.
My last slide from the Don Davis leadership class has become my leadership mantra for this tour: "The final test of a leader is that he leave behind him - in other men - the will and the determination to carry on." - Walter Lippman