To Market, To Market: Technology Transfer Assistance For Small, Rural Manufacturers

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - When a large, urban manufacturer needs technology assistance, the company can use internal research and development department or find nearby consultants. But when a small, rural manufacturer needs help to develop a product, wade through government regulations or implement an employee benefits package, it has few resources available. University of Arkansas researcher Terry Collins, assistant professor of industrial engineering, is trying to solve that problem by making necessary resources more readily available to small manufacturers.

According to Collins, this type of information is crucial to designing an effective technology transfer program. By knowing what the small manufacturers actually need, a program can be designed that will provide the most benefit to small manufacturers and the economy of the state.

To determine what kinds of help small manufacturers needed, Collins conducted a survey of small manufacturers in Oklahoma. He will present his results at the Industrial Engineering Research Conference in Cleveland, May 21-25.

"This is particularly critical in basically rural states, such as Arkansas, Oklahoma and many of the southern and western states," explained Collins. "Most of the job opportunities and possibilities for economic growth are provided by small manufacturers in many parts of these states."

A small manufacturer is defined as having less than 250 employees. In Oklahoma, 97 percent of all manufacturers, approximately 2,581 businesses, fall into that category. From this group, Collins selected 25 percent from eight major industrial classifications to survey. These classifications ranged from food, textile products and paper to fabricated metal products, machinery, electrical equipment and transportation equipment.

The resulting 644 randomly selected small manufacturers were mailed a survey designed to assess the types of services that they needed. The survey looked at needs in the most common technology transfer areas: technical assistance, research and development, governmental compliance, business assistance and human resource management.

Within these areas, small manufacturers were asked to rank the importance of a specific item on a scale of 1 to 7. For example, several questions related to how important research and development was to the company and how important receiving assistance would be to that effort.

As expected, responses varied according to the type of manufacturing facility. However, the major impact appeared to be the size and age of the company, rather than the type of product that was manufactured.

"Larger, younger firms rated technical assistance higher than smaller, older manufacturing companies," said Collins. "And manufacturers employing between 76 and 250 employees rated research and development assistance much higher than did manufacturers with 25 or fewer employees."

Although past research indicated that the age and size of a company were related to human resource management, Collins’ study did not support this conclusion. Rather, he found that the need for assistance in human resource management was related to the type of industry involved.

Collins found significant interest in assistance for research and development strategies and new product development, but survey respondents also indicated that assistance with enhancing their existing products was very important.

Many respondents also felt that governmental compliance assistance in a non-threatening manner was very important to their company. Small manufacturers in the textile, apparel, paper and machinery industries found this of particular importance.

Small manufacturers also found technical assistance with manufacturing technologies to be important. They also considered assistance with benefits, insurance and worker’s compensation training to be valuable to their company.

Collins envisions a statewide system for technology transfer being a hybrid of the Agricultural Extension model, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership and business assistance models for small manufacturers. This new approach would provide "one-stop-shopping" for the small manufacturer, enabling them to bring products to market faster and create new jobs and economic development for rural communities in the state.