Abstract
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the United Kingdom’s National Measurement Institute, providing the measurement infrastructure that underpins prosperity and quality of life in our country. It recently contributed to a new report by innovation foundation, Nesta, that seeks to provide a vital part of the answer to what a technology-based industrial strategy looks like. Graham Torr, who manages NPL’s relationship with its government partners, outlines the role played by the Laboratory and the findings of the Nesta report.
What are the essential ingredients of a technology-based industrial strategy? Economist Agnès Estibals, in her report Infratechnologies: The Building Blocks of Innovation-based Industrial Competitiveness, argues that infratechnologies – infrastructure technologies – are a vital part of the mix. What are these exactly? Well, they form the basis of a successful innovation system that helps knowledge flow across the economy, between researchers, businesses, and government.
Infratechnologies include measurement and test methods, scientific and engineering data and models, standards, inspection methods, certification processes and more generally, demonstrations of technical feasibility. These technologies and the organisations that support them connect scientific research to businesses, and businesses to each other. NPL is one such organisation, as is the British Standards Institution (BSI). They are part of a varied group that spans the public and private sector and includes national laboratories, institutes and research and technology organisations.
Taken as a whole, infratechnologies are essential to innovation; they ensure that innovative products and services are effectively developed and progressed for the benefit of the UK economy. They are particularly important for fast-moving sectors, such as nanotechnologies, telecommunications and low carbon technologies, which require a pool of supporting technological knowledge to successfully develop and grow.
The United Kingdom is competing with innovative economies in other countries that bridge the gap between research and commercialisation through the provision of effective infratechnologies. These countries do this by taking a holistic view of their infratechnologies, investing in them and ensuring that the organisations that provide them are fit-for-purpose and operate in a joined-up manner. Examples include Germany’s Fraunhofer Society, Belgium’s Imec, the Netherlands’ Holst Centre, Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).
Why do the United Kingdom’s competitors invest so heavily in infratechnologies? Because, as the report shows, infratechnologies improve industrial competitiveness. They do so in the following four key ways:
Infratechnologies help to develop a proof of concept, usually a prototype, to demonstrate that the intended performance of a product is achievable. This ensures that there is a minimal gap between expectation and deliverable before the product is produced, marketed and sold.
Infratechnologies can explore the properties of a transformational technology to reduce the risks in its application. For example, researching the structure of the materials used, at a molecular scale, and generating new empirical knowledge and instruments, will reduce the substantial risks associated with applied industrial production.
Infratechnologies can help to integrate new production methods that increase efficiency by changing the way businesses conceive, build and implement automated manufacture. This includes helping them to develop the capabilities and skills they need to master new production processes and machinery.
Infratechnologies provide the technical basis for the development of common languages, architectures and performance standards that are necessary to create a marketplace. This helps to accelerate the adoption of innovations and enables more businesses to collaborate within global value chains.
The Nesta report goes on to consider the application of infratechnologies in the United Kingdom, looking at how they work and their role in the technological innovation system. It uses the example of measurement and standards organisations (NPL and BSI) and analyses how the work they do is taken and used by businesses to innovate.
For example, the report identifies four types of businesses using services provided by NPL to assist their innovation processes. They are as follows:
Defender businesses. They integrate technological changes into existing products in order to improve their overall performance. NPL supports ‘defender’ businesses in the innovation process through consultancy and testing services that enhance competences and provide confidence.
The report gives the example of Hyperion Lighting – a manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting solutions – as a defender business. NPL tested their new design of energy-saving linear fluorescent lamp to provide detailed data (luminous flux, intensity distribution, spectral distribution) under standardised controlled conditions. The results provided independent evidence of the lamp’s performance in an industry-standard format compatible with the commercial software packages used by lighting designers.
2. Prospector businesses. They search for new opportunities in the market by introducing new technology-intensive products that create changes and uncertainties that their competitors must respond to. NPL supports their innovation processes by helping to produce new knowledge via research contracts and collaborative research.
Vivacta is a prospector business that uses innovative technology that can measure biological markers (e.g. in blood) at the point-of-care to provide quick diagnosis. NPL helped the business to prepare for market by providing a bespoke computer model of the cartridge used to collect the blood sample. The modelling tool provides scientific underpinning to the optimisation by Vivacta of their sensor technology and will reduce development time for new applications.
3. Analyser businesses. They change their production processes to introduce leaner, more efficient and cost-effective systems. The role of measurement in the innovation process is capital-enhancing via consultancy and training.
Dawson Precision Components specialises in low- to medium-volume production and pre-production of precision-engineered components for specialist industries. NPL was contracted to train all Dawson’s employees and brought them up to an across-the-board level of competence in use of measuring equipment and interpretation of technical drawings. As a result, employees learnt to consider the inaccuracies of the measuring equipment being used, whether operating the simplest or the most advanced instruments.
4. Unlocker businesses. They look for interoperability between systems and aim to create new platforms that open up new markets on the basis of which further innovations can be developed. NPL supports the basis for new technology platforms, often via input to documentary standards and participation in expert committees.
To support 3G, or third-generation mobile telecommunications, network operators such as O2 had to install a new network of antennas, capable of handling more data and higher speeds. A range of antennas were available, but it was impossible to evaluate them because specifications were set by the manufacturers. To address this, an antenna range within an anechoic chamber at NPL helped network operators by independently comparing the performance of different manufacturers and set performance standards for these products. The results enabled network operators to make well-informed decisions about which supplier and product would best fit their needs. This led to substantial efficiency savings through fewer base-stations needed in rural areas, lower masts and less interference between adjacent base-stations in urban areas.
This shows how partnerships with infrastructure technology organisations like NPL are critical to improving the competitiveness of businesses, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Many large companies have the resources to collaborate with and absorb knowledge from universities directly, but SMEs often struggle to do this. Organisations like NPL and BSI can provide a one-stop opportunity for SMEs to access a range of technological support they lack and access specialised skills that are otherwise not available to them.
The report goes on to outline three key recommendations for improving the United Kingdom’s technological infrastructure:
Undertake a strategic assessment of how to use and combine infratechnologies better to support industrial innovation across our economy. The success of the new Catapult Centres (the Technology Strategy Board’s programme to bridge the gap between business, academia, research and government) will depend critically on interfacing them effectively with the existing infrastructure technology organisations and working with them to develop this infrastructure for the benefit of the businesses they support.
Use new instruments to improve access to infratechnologies by SMEs. The report gives the example of competitive programmes used in Asia and the United States to support the most promising concepts through the typically difficult stages of feasibility and prototyping using the skills and assets owned by infrastructure technology organisations.
Use public supply chains to promote technological innovation by SMEs and reduce blockage. This requires support from government to take the risk of investing in innovative solutions from new suppliers. The report points out that the United States and Scandinavian countries already do this effectively and that the Technology Strategy Board could use its unparalleled role in the United Kingdom’s innovation system to lead this.
The organisations that provide infratechnologies can do more to enable SMEs to access new markets by working with them more closely, and this will mitigate the high costs and risks that are often a barrier to innovation. The report goes on to state that a failure to invest in innovative SMEs during an enduring period of austerity will almost certainly damage the United Kingdom’s industrial competitiveness in the long term.
The Nesta report aims to be the first step in the process of raising awareness of the role of infratechnologies to audiences who could benefit from them, especially smaller businesses. Also necessary is the strengthening of relationships between the critical people and organisations that are producing, sharing and applying different kinds of technological knowledge that can ultimately benefit the UK economy.