Innovative Research
Putting Government Funding to Work
Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR) in Tucson, Ariz., credits new applications for technology as the company´s key to growth. With the help of NASA´s SBIR program, ACR is on the road to success.
What began with only $1,000 in startup funds has since become a world-class company that focuses on developing state-of-the-art high- temperature, high-strength ceramic materials and processes.
Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR) is just the kind of company that NASA Langley´s Small Business Partnership Team (SBPT) likes to cite as a successful product of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
CEO Mark Angier and President Anthony Mulligan founded the
company in 1989. In the late 1990s, ACR received an SBIR award from NASA´s Marshall Space Flight Center to develop a rapid-prototyping
technology that could produce new composite materials. At that time, Marshall was working on ceramic materials that would enable a new
generation of low-cost propulsion components for NASA and the Department of Defense.After completing the SBIR work with Marshall, ACR was searching for other potential applications for the technology. The researchers knew that the most immediate applications were in the area of bio-implants and believed that the technology would work well with some of the advanced materials they had been developing. "We thought the natural fit would be for high-strength polymers that could be used for bio-implants," says Ranji Vaidyanathan, manager of advanced materials for ACR. By combining computer modeling and its own revolutionary materials, ACR developed an innovative product that may one day be used to create artificial bone grafts. Plasti-Bone is strong enough to support new bone growth but porous enough to be absorbed and replaced by the human body. The use of the rapid-prototyping technology is a major benefit, because it can quickly create the artificial custom-fit bone material. Plasti-Bone is now undergoing lab trials to gain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a process the company believes will take three to five years.
Through SBIR funding from NASA Langley, ACR is now developing new technologies for radiation-shielding applications. Dr. Sheila Thibeault of Langley´s advanced materials and processing branch has been working closely with ACR. "The multifunctional radiation-shielding materials being developed by ACR under the SBIR program for NASA Langley are candidate structural materials for protecting humans and microelectronics from the hazards of radiation," Thibeault says. "The materials may be used on the international space station, the crew exploration vehicle, crew habitats and rovers." In addition, the materials have potential for nonaerospace radiation-shielding applications, such as nuclear accelerators, nuclear power plants, nuclear submarines and medical facilities administering radiation therapy.
The work with Langley is yet another example of ACR spinning out a new application from the work originally begun with Marshall.
The company has also entered the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Through an SBIR award from the Office of Naval Research, ACR has teamed with another firm to develop and deploy the "Silver Fox." The Silver Fox is a small tactical UAV that uses high-tech "eyes in the sky" camera technology to gather intelligence information while simultaneously relaying the images to a remote laptop on the ground.
ACR has also been involved with Langley´s Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Laboratory (SUAVELab). "We´ve been working with them to help improve their ability to design and operate small UAVs for the military," says Mike Logan, head of SUAVELab. "We´re also helping them to develop and field technologies which will help protect our troops overseas." Besides the federal government, ACR pursues commercial applications for its research. Angier believes that licensing the company´s technologies to other industries has been an important mechanism.
"What they´ll be able to do with the technology, we would struggle to do ourselves. It would take us much longer to commercialize and to do the product development they´re capable of, and they have marketing clout that a small business like ACR doesn´t," Angier says.
The company has also signed a 10-year, multimillion-dollar license agreement, allowing a U.S. company to use one of ACR´s technologies to improve the efficiency of oil and rock drilling. ACR has also expanded to international markets. One of its technologies has been licensed to Kyocera in Japan, the global leader in ceramics for communications applications.
ACR extends its partnerships to the academic community as well. From the beginning, the firm has collaborated with colleges and
universities, believing that academic partnerships are critical to its research-and-development success. Angier says that large universities often have resources for technology development beyond those of ACR. By partnering with the universities, the company can advance the
development of its own technologies. In addition to working with the
faculty, ACR regularly employs
university interns on staff. The firm gets to "test drive" potential full-time employees before hiring them, and then has a close connection with
the universities doing some of the technology transfer.With product demand on the increase, ACR recently entered into a new joint venture called Advanced Ceramics Manufacturing, or ACM. The company was looking for ways to expand and help the community, and also develop a relationship that would be mutually beneficial. Through a cooperative arrangement, the owners of ACR are building a new facility on the nearby Tohono O´odom reservation. ACR will train people on the reservation to fill technical positions at ACM, with a focus on product development and manufacturing of ceramic tooling.
Angier believes federal funding is responsible for the technical superiority his company has today. But, it´s more than that. ACR knows how to put its government funding to work by constantly searching for those new applications and opportunities.
For more information, contact Robert L. Yang, Manager, SBIR/STTR Program Office, NASA Langley Research Center, 757/864-8020, Robert.L.Yang@nasa.gov.
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Improving the Commercialization
The NASA Alliance for Small Business Opportunity (NASBO) outlines best practices for commercialization
A new pilot program for NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II companies outlines a body of technology commercialization best practices and will help to improve the commercialization process. The NASA Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) office, in response to recognized commercialization barriers, conceived NASA Alliance for Small Business Opportunity (NASBO). The current pilot phase is a means to identify and validate elements of a process capable of improving commercialization rates, specifically the transition from Phase II to III. The pilot program is being conducted in Southern California by the NASA Commercialization Center. The intent is to demonstrate outcomes that make it attractive for chapters to form across the country. In January 2003, nine companies that had applied were accepted into the NASBO pilot program based primarily on commercialization potential.
Commercialization is defined broadly as encompassing both spin-in (infusion into a NASA program) and spin-out (development for nongovernment markets). As a pilot program, NASBO is supporting commercialization efforts from ideation to prototype testing and validation. The NASBO work suggests that effective ideation for an SBIR Phase II company requires a number of preparation steps. Although they sound straightforward, these steps actually require a recharacterization of the technology. The work also suggests that, if the proper basis for ideations is not established, the most effective strategies of recognizing "random events" and spotting "solutions" are nearly impossible to implement. Successful new-product ideation requires a customer frame of reference as opposed to a purely technical mind-set. Even when an SBIR Phase II company has considerable technology-commercialization capacity, each new opportunity means a return to basics.
Ideation preparation guidelines for NASBO companies are proving to be effective as a starting point. They include populating a grid with the significant technical-performance characteristics on one axis, and competing technologies or different approaches of the same technology on the other axis. This is an exercise that contrasts all competitive technologies. The guidelines also include populating a grid with the top products under consideration in each market on one axis, and the dominant product features and benefits on the other axis. There should be at least one spin-in and one spin-out example developed. The strongest grids include the following features/benefits: product cost, market share, technology used, superior feature/benefit, and significant feature/benefit weakness. The spin-in grid should also include the readiness levels of the technology.
The information should be used to characterize a potential product, as if a discussion is being held with an informed customer who knows exactly what solutions are available in the marketplace.
The first attempt to complete the top three seemingly simple, straightforward tasks is proving to be more difficult to master and to take much longer than expected. However, the exercise has been effective in generating customer-focused discussions and orienting those involved to the framework of a commercialization culture. The result is greater confidence in the potential outcome and more willingness to commit resources to the task. The NASA Commercialization Center is a business incubator jointly developed by NASA and California Polytechnic State University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). NASA, Southern California Edison and Cal Poly Pomona are sponsoring the NASBO pilot program.
For more information, contact Julie Holland, NASA Commercialization Center, 909/869-4477, jaholland@csupomona.edu.
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