Nanoscience and Technology: Firms Take First Steps

While new data and knowledge about nanoscience and technology continue to grow exponentially, there are signs of progress toward realizing commercial outcomes from this exploding information base. Some companies are awakening from the overdose effects of nano-hype and information-overload brought by massive global investment in nanotechnology. They report taking first steps to scan huge amounts of diverse new nano-knowledge and harvest what they need for commercial results. A number of companies have potential nanotech applications on trial, and at least six different product approaches to converting new nanotech knowledge to testable propositions have been identified. These are among the latest findings from an ongoing investigation by the Industrial Research Institute's Research-on-Research committee, in conjunction with researchers from the Center for Innovation Management Studies at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. The first report from this group (RTM May-June 2004, pp. 6-8) conveyed insights from representatives of 17 IRI member companies about the explosive growth over the past several years in global nanoscience and technology (NS&T) R&D funding, and the projections of huge economic gains it might create. That initial small-scale survey revealed: * Agreement that the was happening but with wide variations in opinions about whether the explosion represented normal evolution of scientific interest and progress in atomic-level phenomena or an inflection point in the growth of practical knowledge about an important new infra-technology. * Convergence around the notion that keeping abreast of the scientific literature across the many disciplines involved in NS&T research would be a major challenge because of the sheer volume of information being produced, as well as difficulties in assessing its business implications. * Only a few representatives felt that their companies had well-articulated strategies for dealing with the ongoing explosion. Most seemed content to watch and wait or to trust in their existing technology monitoring and tracking systems, both within business units and at the corporate level. In this article, we report findings from two breakout groups convened by the ROR subcommittee at the 2004 Fall IRI meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. We probed the practices corporations are using to: 1) scan the of data in the nano realm and 2) convert the new knowledge into experimental products and processes. Scanning the Data Explosion The 14 participants (from 10 companies, two government labs and two universities) unanimously agreed that the NS&T information was spread-out, diverse and vast. As we learned from our initial survey, many company representatives acknowledged that they were ill-equipped to tackle the volume of information engulfing their company. From the discussion, we identified five distinctly different approaches that R&D-intensive firms were using (see Table 1). Converting Nano Knowledge We also asked participants how their firms were attempting to build experimental products and processes using emerging pieces of NS&T knowledge. To facilitate the discussion, we first asked them to help us develop a framework for classifying R&D projects that used new nano knowledge according to the value proposition associated with the effort. The group was able to classify R&D projects under four broad descriptions: * Projects aimed at process improvement, problem solving and so forth. * Projects aimed at new product or process development that would best be described as incremental and would typically be handled through internal NPD processes. * Projects aimed at breakthrough products/radical innovation. * Projects aimed at building a knowledge base or technology platform. Although this framework was not verbalized within their companies, the four categories created a useful context in which to examine internal or project-based processes for value creation from nanotechnology. …