Transferring NBS technology to small manufacturers through state and local centers

Transferring research results from federal laboratories to small, local industries poses major conceptual as well as practical difficulties. To address the problem, this paper provides a model of a technology-transfer system in which a federal laboratory—the National Bureau of Standards's Automated Manufacturing Research Facility—is linked to small manufacturers through state-and community-based technology centers, where the various instituions in the system are matched along dimensions of (a) level of government, (b) stage in cycle of innovation, (C) education of prototypical worker, and (d) nature of capital-revenue base.