2.3 Technology and Market Intelligence

Technology Scouting

Overview: 

Our Technology Scouting service is designed to help organizations locate the technology they need but may not know how to find. Existing technologies can often address your most pressing challenges in new product development or process improvement. Without trained professionals conducting the search, identifying optimal solutions can be difficult. Technology scouting goes beyond traditional channels, providing a comprehensive perspective on available solutions to technology problems. This service encompasses proactive searching for solutions, focusing on nonobvious answers to complex issues, and exploring hard-to-access resources. 

Key Benefits: 

• Proactive Search for Solutions: Actively seek out technology solutions using specific criteria tailored to your organization’s unique needs.
  
  
• Focus on Nonobvious Solutions: Emphasize identifying innovative, nonobvious solutions to challenging technology problems that may be overlooked.
  
  
• Insights from Diverse Fields: Bring new insights and awareness from outside your core industry by engaging with experts in related fields.
  
  
• Exploration of Hard-to-Access Areas: Investigate areas that are not easily accessed directly, including government laboratories, universities, and private sector sources.
  
  
• Time and Cost Savings: Tap into existing but often unknown sources of information to find solutions that can save your organization time, money, and frustration.

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Technology Driven Market Intelligence

Overview:

Our Technology Driven Market Intelligence (TDMI) service provides a systematic and comprehensive approach to identifying the benefits and market impacts related to your company’s technology-based assets, including ideas, products, processes, and capabilities. TDMI directly considers the technical and market viability of your asset and characterizes the associated opportunities and barriers. Through a structured process of desk research and expert interviews, TDMI provides intelligence such as: 

• Identifying and Characterizing Markets: Identifying and characterizing the markets, trends, value chains, competition, and companies of most interest and relevance to your business.
  
  
• Detailing Technical Performance: Detailing prevailing technical performance and user requirements and assessing how well your asset meets or could meet those requirements.
  
  
• Describing Development Options: Describing your best options for moving forward with development, partnering, and market entry.
  
  
• Filling Key Knowledge Gaps: Filling in other key knowledge gaps your company may have surrounding regulatory, intellectual property, or competitiveness issues.

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Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) 

Overview:

The Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) offers a unique opportunity for eligible entrepreneurs and small businesses in Texas to access up to 40 hours of no-cost technical assistance. This program is specifically designed to help businesses overcome distinct engineering challenges that can be realistically addressed within the allocated time frame. SATOP focuses on providing expertise rather than funding projects, building prototypes, or competing with commercially available services or products.  

Eligibility Requirements: To qualify for this assistance, businesses must be in Texas and possess one of the following: 

• A patent 
• A provisional patent 
• A prototype 
• Engineering drawings 

Key Benefits: 

• No-Cost Technical Assistance: Gain access to valuable engineering support without incurring costs.
  
  
• Targeted Solutions: Receive assistance for identifiable engineering challenges that can be resolved within 40 hours.
  
  
• Expertise from Professionals: Work with experienced professionals who can provide insights and solutions tailored to your specific needs.
  
  
• Enhanced Innovation: Leverage the program to advance your projects and enhance your competitive edge in the market.

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National Laboratory Technical Assistance Program

Overview: 

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) offers a comprehensive technical assistance program designed to foster partnerships with industry, upskill the workforce, and promote energy management practices. This initiative focuses on the adoption of energy-efficient practices, decarbonization technologies, and strategies for reducing water and waste across the industrial sector. 

IEDO works directly with industry stakeholders to help lower energy-related costs through various support programs. The office develops tools and resources, connects industry with experts at DOE’s national labs, facilitates peer-to-peer learning, and assists companies in managing their energy, water, and other resources more efficiently – all at no cost. 

Additionally, IEDO is committed to workforce training and upskilling activities, preparing existing workers and attracting a diverse mix of new talent to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s industrial jobs. A well-trained, diverse clean energy workforce is essential for building a robust and sustainable industrial sector. 

Key Benefits: 

• No Cost: All of IEDO's technical assistance programs are free, aimed at benefiting manufacturers, workers, and communities by improving energy and water management.
  
  
• Energy and Water Savings: Partnering with IEDO enables companies to develop sustainable business practices and adopt technologies that significantly reduce their energy and water usage. For instance, the Water Savings Network partners have collectively saved over 10 billion gallons of water since 2015.
  
  
• Cost Savings: Implementing energy-efficient practices leads to direct financial benefits for manufacturers. Better Plants partners alone have saved more than $10.6 billion across over 3,600 facilities.

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Advanced Manufacturing and Manufacturing Institutes

Overview:

In 2016, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated the first competition to establish new Manufacturing USA Institutes. These institutes are part of the Manufacturing USA network, fostering private-public partnerships aimed at driving U.S. innovation and increasing competitiveness. Through collaboration among industry, academia, nonprofits, and government agencies, these institutes focus on accelerating advanced manufacturing projects, investing in cutting-edge products, and developing cross-cutting resources to bolster the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The institutes cover a broad range of advanced manufacturing sectors, including functional fabrics, robotics, biopharmaceuticals, and cybersecurity, among others.

The manufacturing institutes are:

• Advanced Functional Fabrics of America
• American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics
• America Makes
• Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing
• BioFab USA
• Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem
• CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute
• The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute
• Electrified Processes for Industry without Carbon
• The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation
• LIFT – Lightweight Materials Manufacturing
• Manufacturing Time Digital
• NextFlex – Sensors, Electronics
• The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals
• Power America – Electronics and Materials
• Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment Institute
• Reducing Embodied Energy and Decreasing Emissions

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