Technology readiness level - TRL

Anna P nData conversation 1-9-2019

Technology transfer is a mystifying abstraction

# ‘Off the shelf’ technology is code for TRL 9 and maybe 8


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Standardized cargo pods for airplanes

Innovation arms of businesses awkwardly coexist with other divisions

# Anna P nData conversation 1-9-2019
A lot of the ideas come from Changi airport 
Spitballing ideas talking to the staff
Their main job is to find things that are ready to go off the shelf and 
They do work with universities
Have to report back to head office in Dubai
One example is: [[Standardized cargo pods for airplanes]]
They also have an IT department
They have no budget - any funding they get they need to go straight through an IT director
Three major categories of ‘innovation’
- Process - this is things like 
- Digitization 
- Automation
Need to go through a cost-benefit analysis for projects
## Questions
## Thoughts
They’ve really constrained themselves into a corner - they can only go for technologies that are ready to go off the shelf. [[‘Off the shelf’ technology is code for TRL 9 and maybe 8]] - but then they aren’t able to adjust it 
## Related
[[dNata]]
## Authors
## Link

                          

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Phenomena-based cycles

Activity Space

It is important to precisely define problems in an area

The linear innovation pipeline

Phenomena are things that happen without a human consciously making them happen

TRL1 - Basic Principles Observed and Reported

Aimee Rose conversation 2 Jun 2023

In the past, corporate labs filled a particular niche in the innovation ecosystem

One function of a private ARPA is to fill in the gap once filled by corporate R+D

Corporate labs no longer fill the niche they did in the early-mid twentieth century

R+D Incentivization SPAC

Is there room for an expanded TRL framework?

Our language for talking about types of research is incredibly primitive

Could FROs fill the gap left by corporate R+D?

Biomanufacturing Readiness Levels — BRL

Glossary

You wouldn’t even talk about TRLs at TRL1

# Technology readiness level - TRL
There are nine Technology Readiness Levels
- [[TRL1 - Basic Principles Observed and Reported]]
- [[TRL2 - Possible application formulated]]
- [[TRL3 - Proof of Concept]]
- [[TRL4 - Breadboard version in lab]]
- [[TRL5 - Breadboard version in relevant environment]]
- [[TRL6 - prototype version in relevant environment]]
- [[TRL7 - prototype version in real environment]]
- [[TRL8 - production version tested in real environment]]
- [[TRL9 - production version operating in real environment]]
In each of these I have reformulated to try to make it context free. Breadboard is the only thing that hints at a specific field. 

[[TRLs are not monotonic]] - you can get to 3 and need to go back to 2 etc.

[[A MVP is TRL6 through TRL8 bundled together]]

Places that actually use TRL:
- [[Department of Homeland Security Laboratories]]
- [[Department of Defense (DoD)]]
- [[NRF]]

### Why are TRL’s Relevant
- [[TRLs are useful because they provide a clinical framework for talking about a technology’s maturity]]
- [[Project management  is important if transitioning between TRLs is complex and expensive]]
- [[Looking at places where software cheats on the TRL ladder could suggest places where atomland technologies should aim for]]
## Questions
## Related
[[‘Off the shelf’ technology is code for TRL 9 and maybe 8]]
Interestingly, the Phases of Drug R&D process according to [[Science Business - Book]] also has 9 phases:
![](../BearImages/2C401B70-5D95-41B5-9D8D-91F6C736D901-68756-000421E80F7C9C20/7397CF94-8B5A-46CD-A340-4AEA6E2431D1.png)
- [[VC funded startups blur the line between what can fund R&D because of the compressed TRL of software]]
- [[Manufacturing Readiness Level — MRL]]

## References
- [[Technology Readiness Levels Whitepaper]]
- [[Technology Readiness and the Valley of Death]]


                            

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Manufacturing is important and often ignored

Parney Albright conversation 17 Jan 2023

One of the most failure-prone points in technological development is when a technology needs to move from an organization that focuses on R+D to one that focuses on marketing and manufacturing

We only see the science based public stuff from the middle of the century because the engineering was classified

# Technology transfer is a mystifying abstraction
Even in containerized software, which is basically the most modular and legible thing in the world, there is a ton of friction handing a project from one team to another team.  “Hell is other people’s code.” [[‘Off the shelf’ technology is code for TRL 9 and maybe 8]]. 

Technology transfer makes sense in a world where if you can look at a drawing on a piece of paper and know everything about it, which was the case until the late 19th century. 

We can abstractly think of you handing the “IP” - patent documentation to me but in order for me to actually do anything with it, so much more needs to be done. Patents aren’t even written by the people who created the technology anymore! Perhaps an extreme analogy but patents represent technology the way the dollar represents gold. The way in which a patent is insufficient to transfer a technology is analogous to how [[Just having the piece of literature doesn’t solve the problem]]

[[A patent describes the key new concept]] but usually doesn’t touch many implementation details. Since [[The creation of a heuretic has two steps - conception and implementation]], it means that patents actually underdetermine a heuretic. This underdetermination means that raw “IP” is useful for suing someone who successfully copies the idea (because to copy the whole of it they need to copy the new concept piece), but it is not particularly useful for copying the heuretic itself. See [[Dupont was unable to replicate viscose rayon]]. [[aroraChangingStructureAmerican2020]] cites this phenomenon as one of the drivers of the creation of corporate labs. The implementation piece is (I suspect) one reason why large companies acquire startups for their technology instead of just buying the technology itself. [[A technology company is a package of human capital and IP]]. 

### Related
- [[Heuretics come out of people’s brains (TECHNOLOGY IS PEOPLE)]]
- [[Manage the Transfer not the Technology]]
- [[Context is important and underrated for knowledge transfer]]
- [[Most tech transfer offices are not profitable]]
- [[Are there examples of successful technology transfer out of a lab without close collaboration between someone in the lab and the external organization?]]
- [[Any technology that comes out of a university needs to go through their tech transfer office]]



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Benʼs working notes

‘Off the shelf’ technology is code for TRL 9 and maybe 8

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