New concepts of measuring technological change

It has becoming increasingly important with regard to the growing international competition in industry in the fields of industrial innovation as well as research to have avilable rational methods of determining the state of the art of technology on an international comparative basis. The paper presents a set of output indicators and explains the new concept of technometrics. Technometrics aims at the determination of technical specifications of national products and processes and their international comparison. As an example a technometric analysis is presented for four different tests in thyroid diagnostics on the basis of monoclonal antibodies. Technometric figures for Germany, Japan, and the USA are calculated and contrasted with data from the foreign trade statistics.