Platforms may enable offering a variety of products to the market while keeping the development cost down. Reusing design knowledge is a key concept, whether manifested as reusing parts, ideas, concepts, or technologies. This article describes processes and information technology solutions for holistically working with both technology platforms and product platforms. A platform framework was developed for managing information and to support the processes. The use of the framework is illustrated through a case study performed at a subsupplier in the aerospace industry focusing on technology development, platform-based product development, and platform configuration. A wiki system supports the technology platform, containing electronic guidelines, methods, and information about the technologies. To support the product platform, a product lifecycle management architecture is created. A turbine rear structure from a turbofan engine is used as an example, requiring several different analysis technologies to be used and coordinated when creating a variant. The solution is a product lifecycle management architecture created based on the technology platform. It integrates a product data management system, a computer-aided design tool, two computer-aided engineering tools, and a configurator.

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Premature introduction of new technologies in product development is likely to lead to both budget and schedule overruns. The assessment of when a technology is ready to be transferred from technology development to product development and production is critical for striking the right balance of short time‐to‐market and low risk. Previous research on internal technology transfer has mainly focused on the development of methods and tools for assessing technology readiness for major development programs in governmental agencies, revealing few cases of such implementations in technology driven industrial companies. This paper aims to provide description of experiences from using such tools at a case company and prescription on how to manage the identified challenges. The study is based on 22 semi‐structured interviews, primarily with personnel from the technology and product development departments. The results indicate that the readiness assessments suggested in literature can support decisions also in industrial companies. However, adapting the tools to the internal differences between technologies is important for minimizing administrative workload and ensuring implementation readiness as opposed to just technology readiness. The strategy for their adaptation could benefit from more research on the practices of companies dealing with internal technology transfer and from the development of a framework for how to adapt the assessment process to different contexts.

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