U.S. Competitiveness Addressed at Washington Forum
- PDF / 156,672 Bytes
- 1 Pages / 604.8 x 806.4 pts Page_size
- 80 Downloads / 154 Views
U.S. Competitiveness Addressed at Washington Forum The 1990 Washington Forum of The Minerais, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS), "Advanced Materials for the Nineties," had U.S. competitiveness as its central thème. Held in Washington, DC on May 3, the one-day conférence attracted about 40 participants and featured five présentations as well as a lunchtime address by Congressman Don Ritter (R-PA). Martin Marietta Corporation's John Greene, director of materials manufacturing R&D, described his company's "stratégie partners" approach to transferring technology within its corporate structure. He explained the importance of searching out stratégie industrial partners to fill spécifie rôles in the business and manufacturing aspects of scaling up from R&D. Greene described two cases where external manufacturers helped transfer R&D results to the manufacturing arms of the corporation. One involved an advanced metal-matrix composite based on in situ précipitation, the other an alloy of weldable high-strength aluminum-lithium calledWeldalite™. The criteria for a successful process, said Greene, include a vital interest on the part of both parties in such an arrangement, a protected technology situation in which patents and possibly exclusive market positions can be offered to a partner, good chemistry between the technical and business management teams of the corporations involved, the possibility of dual-use applications for the technology so that a market in addition to défense is clear, and a highly entrepreneurial, aggressive program manager to pursue the project. Greene said that in the best of circumstances the rime between a device's first réduction to practice and its reaching the marketplace can be drastically shortened. Lyle Schwartz from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) described programs available, particularly through NIST, for interaction between government R&D laboratories and industry. Today, technology transfer means more than offering products off the shelf which hâve already been developed as part of a government mission, he said. Rather, the most effective tech transfer is through joint and early collaboration with industry at the R&D stage. Schwartz cited the need to provide a risk réduction mechanism for industry and the need to bridge a distinct, still existing barrier between materials sci-
70
ence and materials engineering. Schwartz also described the Advanced Technology Program, which is expected to be a growing effort headed by NIST to create industry-led consortia throughout the United States. He concluded by detailing an expert System developed by NIST to control a métal atomization process that produces rapidly solidified métal alloy powder. The program, he said, is représentative of the type in which government can participate with the aim of transferring the results to industry. Sig Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, described the current situation regarding technology transfer from Department of Energy national laboratories to industry. Hecke
