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Small Business Support for New Product Development Joseph A. Morgan and Jay R. Porter Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University Introduction Over the past eight years, the electronics-based programs in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University have gone through multiple changes. First, the electronics and telecommunications programs merged into a single entity. Second, the new program was rebranded as Electronics Systems Engineering Technology (ESET). Finally, through an investment of faculty effort and internal financial support, the curriculum was refocused to emphasize the development of embedded intelligencebased products and systems. Today, the ESET program is known by industry and government agencies for its:  

production of graduates with expertise in the development and support of products and systems that integrate embedded intelligence, communications, and electromechanical systems; ability to support external entities with rapid prototyping and applied research in the area of new product development and implementation.

As part of this new focus, the ESET program now combines faculty expertise and undergraduate education to support small businesses with great ideas that often lack the personnel, the know-how, and the financial support to implement their next big product. This paper discusses the ESET program in more details, gives recent examples of efforts in the area of small business support, discusses the educational value and lessons learned, and finally presents next steps. The Electronic Systems Engineering Technology Program In Fall 2012, the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution merged their existing electronics and telecommunications engineering technology programs into a single program titled Electronic Systems Engineering Technology (ESET). Along with the name change, the curriculum was modified to include not only electronics and telecommunications but also a strong emphasis in systems integration and embedded intelligence-based electronic products. One distinct advantage the new program offered was that it was easier to differentiate from the traditional electrical engineering degree also offered at Texas A&M. In fact, having a degree that was experiential learning-based and that prepared graduates for careers in electronics-based product development proved to be a drawing card for new students and the enrollment grew by approximately fifty percent over three years. Finally, the product development emphasis supports both the College’s and the Department’s interest in introducing students to entrepreneurship. Currently, multiple student projects have developed products that have been commercialized by either industry or graduate-led new companies. The new ESET curriculum not only has a traditional electronics-based technical core but also incorporates a product development emphasis through multiple courses including test, Proceedings of the 2016 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Copyright ©2016, American Society for Engineering Education

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applied statistics, product development, and a capstone course sequence. These courses bring engineering and business-based product development concepts such as six sigma, quality function deployment, voice of the customer and the stage-gate process into the curriculum. Finally, multiple open-ended projects that require students to work in teams and implement electronics-based solutions are vertically integrated into the curriculum. The program then culminates in a two-semester capstone sequence that is centered on a real-world product development experience. The capstone sequence requires students to:    

Form a four-person team that takes on the persona of a startup company Find an idea for an embedded intelligence-based product or system Find a corporate, faculty, or angel investor who can support projects that typically have a $3k to $6k budget. Design and implement their idea by creating a professional and functioning prototype

In order for the ESET students to do this level of product prototyping, a resource needs to be available that can support their efforts. For this reason, the Product Innovation Cellar, or PIC, was built in 2012 with $250k of support through the College’s differential tuition program. This 3400 square foot facility in not only available to the students twenty-four/seven but it also contains both electronic and mechanical rapid prototyping facilities, a collaboration area and a facility where students can interact with their customers both in person as well as virtually. Through the use of the PIC, student teams can prototype ideas almost overnight and can implement professional designs in a matter of a few months. Finally, the faculty also support the students by offering opportunities to participate in value-add activities that augment their product development education. An example of this is the Mobile Integrated Solutions Laboratory (MISL). MISL involves multiple faculty members and is dedicated to applied research in the area of intelligent product development for both private and public partners. Not only has MISL assisted small companies through the rapid development of product prototypes, it has also had an ongoing relationship with NASA’s Johnson Space Center for the past five years supporting both STEM education and space-based missions. It is these types of education-augmenting experiences that make ESET graduates stand out and sought after by industry. Examples of Small Business Support Over the past five years of implementation, the ESET Program has had a number of successful interactions with small companies to support their business opportunities. The program typically selects which of these opportunities to support based on the value that the experiential learning provides to the undergraduate students both from a technical perspective and a business perspective. Interactions with the small companies generally is funded through a grant process that is used to support a student Capstone project or an activity in one of the many applied research laboratories operated by ESET faculty. In both cases, a standard contract is not used so no schedule or specific deliverables are guaranteed. By providing technical services to the small business, overall cost saving can be realized using this approach. The Mobile Integrated Solutions Laboratory focuses on space-based products and systems. This is a market segment that employs significant amounts of embedded intelligence and has large number of small startup companies. Due to the close proximity to NASA Johnson Space Center, MISL has been able to identify and establish relationships with several companies Proceedings of the 2016 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Copyright ©2016, American Society for Engineering Education

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that are interested in collaborating on new product and system development. These projects are well matched to skillsets that ESET undergraduate students have. Furthermore, the possibility of being involved in a project that could potentially operate in space is highly motivational. One of the first companies that interacted with ESET and MISL is NanoRacks. NanoRacks is a small company located just outside of NASA-JSC and is in the business of providing logistic services for transport of resources to the International Space Station. As part of their business model, NanoRacks provides enclosures in multiple sizes (1U, 1.5U, 2U, etc.) that allow scientists and researchers to conduct experiments on the ISS. Although the company provides the physical enclosure, the transport to and the operation of the experiment on the ISS, it does not provide any embedded intelligence capability to monitor, control, record, or report aspects of the experiment. As experiments quickly became more sophisticated, NanoRacks realized that having this capability that fit snuggly into their enclosures would improve their business case and customer base. MISL, upon hearing about this need, moved rapidly to fill this niche market need. In a matter of two months, the prototype was ready for verification and validation, and within five months the product was ready for use. NanoRacks’ assessment of the new product led to the company having the product space qualified. The MISL product is now the embedded intelligence system of choice for NanoRacks and their customers and has been selected for use by the Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) as well as a joint group of scientists from NASA-JSC Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division and the University of Central Florida. This later group plans to conduct a year-long experiment on the ISS to better understand the effects of microgravity on regolith (Moon dust). MISL’s engagement with NanoRacks has created funding to support a number of ESET undergraduates and has provided NanoRacks with the ability to better support their customers. Based on some of the work done with NanoRacks, another small company located in Bryan, Texas contacted MISL on some ideas they had for products. Texas Space Technology, Applications, and Research (T STAR) is interested in developing a turn-key CubeSat known as TSat. The company approached ESET and MISL to collaborate with them in their new product development efforts. This project has been in operation for approximately nine months and will include a complete mechanical design as well as an expandable embedded intelligence capability. MISL has employed a master’s student in Mechanical Engineering to lead the mechanical development efforts. Using the relationship MISL has with NanoRacks, new enclosure designs have been created that maximum the internal volume of the satellite for the scientist/researcher by taking advantage of the configuration of the NanoRacks launching mechanism. Designs for a 1U TSat are currently being prototyped and the design of a 3U Tsat is being initiated. Proceedings of the 2016 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Copyright ©2016, American Society for Engineering Education

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MISL undergraduate students are leveraging the partnership the lab has with the Control and Data Handing group at NASA-JSC to co-develop a space-qualified rack-and-stack architecture to provide the embedded intelligence portion of the TSat. Using this layered architecture, teams of ESET students can quickly assemble the hardware development platform that might include a 1) power layer, 2) intelligence layer, 3) sensor layer, and 4) communications layer. A Capstone design team under sponsorship of T STAR is adding to the architecture by designing a new ISM-band communications layer that will support communications between the satellite and ground stations as it orbits the earth for a period of approximately one month after being launched from the ISS. T STAR sees the commercialization of this new product line to be a timely entry into the growing market for small form factor satellites. In addition, T STAR is now responding to solicitations from both public and private sector customers to use their new products to satisfy space-based research and exploration projects. Educational Value and Lessons Learned From the previous examples, one can see the level of involvement ESET students have in new product development for real customers both as part of their formal education as well as through extracurricular activities. An advantage of this two-prong approach is that all ESET students, through their capstone experience, receive some exposure to working with customers, developing new products, and creating functional prototypes. Meanwhile, highly motivated students with a real interest in product development and entrepreneurship have opportunities for increased exposure and learning. There are multiple value-adds to having undergraduate students involved in these processes. First, the process of interfacing with customers to develop product design requirements creates an ideal environment for teaching quality function deployment and the House of Quality. In addition, students develop their communication skills, especially as it deals with communicating ideas to a diverse, and often non-technical audience. Second, the product ideas that are evaluated as acceptable for course credit typically involve hardware, software, communications, system integration and some level of mechanical design. Thus, students have the opportunity to use most of the core knowledge concepts they learn through previous coursework to solve real-world, open-ended problems. This integrative experience helps solidify their “book” knowledge and helps them learn how to apply theoretical concepts. It also is highly motivational for the students to have a real customer who has a financial stake in their success. Finally, there are many entrepreneurial aspects to these projects. Students develop an appreciation for the value of not only solving problems, but learning to plan projects, developing multiple solutions and vetting them, and creating solutions that sell. The goal is not to create entrepreneurs straight out of college, but to give the students enough knowledge about entrepreneurship that sometime in their career they might have the interest and enough previous experience to “take the plunge.” Over the past five years, students have been involved in approximately ten funded product development projects per year and countless applied research opportunities. From this, the faculty have learned several lessons: 

Nine months is a relatively short time for an inexperienced team to fully complete an embedded system-based prototype. It is important to ensure that all projects are vetted by the faculty for feasibility. For this reason, a rubric was designed that is used to ensure that all projects contain a limited set of critical elements. In addition, all students must perform an faculty/industry-assessed preliminary design review eight weeks into their Proceedings of the 2016 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Copyright ©2016, American Society for Engineering Education

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project. A go-no go decision is made at that point to ensure that teams are on the right track. In the past, intellectual property has been an issue both from the standpoint of the students and the customers. It is important to negotiate the intellectual property upfront, before the project is started. The current process requires the students and the customer to have a written intellectual property agreement before the project is started. Most often, this agreement allows both parties to own any intellectual property generated during the execution of the project. In an academic program, students spend the first three years working primarily on shortterm problems with defined outcomes. Thus, the experience of a large scale, real-world, open-ended project that must be completed is often a new experience for undergraduates. It is important to develop a measurable system of accountability to ensure that students track their progress. This is now done using formal project planning and management tools such as network logic diagrams, critical paths, GANTT charts, and SPI/CPI. Often student projects and laboratory assignments rely solely on the experience to impart knowledge, not necessarily successful completion. However, in the case of these product development projects, students must demonstrate success in order to “pass.” The required successful completion of a prototype has numerous benefits for the students including a sense of pride, an understanding that failure is not acceptable and a sense of responsibility to the customer (or future employer). Next Steps

Although interactions and partnerships with large corporations add significant value to undergraduate engineering/engineering technology programs, working with small startup companies provides challenges and opportunities that are not readily duplicated. As each ESET faculty member continues to develop his/her focus area for applied research, the clearer the potential for developing new alliances for product and systems becomes. In some cases, ESET will have to take the lead in developing and supporting the product while in other cases, it is more reasonable to have the small company bring the prototype to market. Whichever is the case, the rewards for students to enhance their education and gain real-world engineering experience is tremendous. Replicating this model in other industry segments such as oil & gas, automotive, medical devices and systems, and communications is considered as the primary next step. In addition, the ESET Program is expanding its multidisciplinary interaction with other Texas A&M colleges and globally with universities in other countries. Expanding these types of experiential learning opportunities through interaction with small companies to emphasize the rewards associated with becoming an entrepreneur is another aspect that the ESET program sees as one of its next steps. A vision of students graduating and staying in College Station to open their own product-based engineering company which a few years ago seemed impossible is now something that is easily within reach. Key to these next steps to ensure a facility such as the Product Innovation Cellar remain available to support the design, development, documentation and delivery functions necessary in product generation. Also equally important is the need to not lose sight of the primary objective that is to provide a motivational and challenging educational experience that prepares ESET graduates to hit the ground running in the public and private sectors immediately following graduation. Proceedings of the 2016 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Copyright ©2016, American Society for Engineering Education