Thinking from Inside the Tank Moves to the Marketplace

The Chamber Salutes Business Creativity

A ccreative approach to the successful transfer of new technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace and a new device for providing exercise to bed-ridden patients received honors during the Chamber’s Spirit of Innovation Awards Luncheon.

The event featured a keynote address by Volkswagen Group of America President and CEO Stefan Jacoby. (See excerpts from his remarks on Page 19.)

Adaptive Methods was honored with the Chattanooga Technology Council’s Early Innovator Award for an innovative development and marketing strategy for its Rapid Deployment Shelter System. The Moveo XP, an exercise platform for medically complex patients, developed by DJO, received the Kruesi Award.

The Kruesi Award recognizes area companies for creating and implementing innovative products, services and business practices. The Early Innovator Award honors emerging, technology-based enterprises that have produced a groundbreaking prototype product or process that promises success in the marketplace.

Innovative Rapid Deployment Shelter and Process

Adaptive Methods won the Early Innovator Award for devising a blueprint for the successful transfer of technologyfrom the laboratory to the market.

The technology turned product is a rigid-walled, 400-square-foot unit that can be deployed by one person in under two minutes. At the touch of a button the Rapid Deployment Shelter System (RDSS) unfolds from a standard 20-foot shipping container into a self-sufficient unit with on-board generator and heating and air conditioning system.

With configurations ranging from surgical suite to command-and-control center, the unit can be used by the military, disaster relief organizations and humanitarian agencies.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Manage-ment Agency), county emergency services departments and for-profit companies have indicated interest in the units, according to Keith Buckner, Adaptive Methods vice president for manufacturing.

Buckner expects the company to employ 100 to 200 people in the manufacture of several hundred units a year in Chattanooga, as the company grows over the next three years.

In a disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, Adaptive Methods could lease RDSS units which can be transported and deployed quickly, used for a variety of purposes and then returned to Adaptive Methods for maintenance and storage. "Emergency agencies would save money, time and lives," Buckner says.

With offices in five states, Adaptive Methods develops advanced sensor processing and computing architecture products for the Navy. In 2005 the company hired Buckner to lead a diversification into the manufacture of emerging product lines. Officials chose Chattanooga for this new departure to capitalize on resources of the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor.

Buckner learned about the RDSS technology from the director of the National Security Technology Development Center at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. "We liked it and decided it was something we could build and sell," says the former operations manager of Advanced Vehicle Systems, Inc. which developed the battery-powered vehicles for Chattanooga’s electric shuttle fleet.

Marketing research showed little demand for the RDSS as a military surgical center but strong demand for the unit from disaster preparedness and humanitarian aid organizations.

"So we re-engineered and redesigned the Y-12 prototype," Buckner says. "Ours is lighter weight, has all rigid walls and is self-sustainable."

Beyond those improvements, the Early Innovator Award was based on Buckner’s unconventional approach to technology transfer.

The process is challenging because often entrepreneurs who purchase licenses to develop the technologies aren’t adequately capitalized for the venture. And while laboratories are quick to offer continuing assistance, their R&D department researchers have full-time jobs and frequently find it difficult to provide help to fledgling business owners.

"With this in mind, I negotiated, as part of our license, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Y-12, requiring that Y-12 offer funding for the project and make staff available to help in its development," Buckner says. "In short, Y-12 recognizes RDSS as a Y-12 project."

Buckner also created a partnership with The Enterprise Center, the Chattanooga non-profit charged with facilitating technology transfers. "The Enterprise Center is abreast of all the new technologies, they’re experts on technology transition and they’re thoroughly networked into the Tennessee Valley Corridor," he says.

Through a contract with Adaptive Methods, The Enterprise Center will serve as the company’s marketing and technology advisor. "So we’re all in this together," Buckner says.

Contracts call for payment of royalties to The Enterprise Center on sales of the RDSS system. "If our business grows, the Enterprise Center will have more money for its nonprofit tech transfer initiatives," Buckner says.

The two agreements Buckner engineered ensured that Adaptive Methods wouldn’t be abandoned once it secured its technology and set about to turn it into a successful product. "Through our agreements with Y-12 and The Enterprise Center we bring additional brainpower and the marketing to the technology transfer effort," he says. "That’s a big innovation, and I expect it to serve as a roadmap for other companies."

Ground-breaking Exercise Platform

DJO, which is in the process of closing its Hixson plant and moving operations to Mexico, received the Kruesi Award for its ground-breaking exercise platform that speeds up the rehabilitation process for bed-ridden patients.

Known as the Moveo XP, the platform combines the benefits of traditional tilt table standing with active exercise, allowing for earlier weight-bearing activity in a controlled environment.

Studies show that the earlier a patient starts rehab in the ICU, the better their results will be. Unfortunately, critical care rehabilitation often confines patients to bed for up to several weeks in order to obtain medical stability. This prolonged immobility can result in muscle atrophy and a rapid loss of strength, as well as drive up healthcare costs.

The Moveo is revolutionary in that the patient begins rehabilitative exercise while still reclined and before ever settingfoot on the floor. The Moveo XP provides a gradual transition back to normalcy. As the patient develops leg strength through sliding exercises, the incline of the table is increased, thus adding resistance.

--Carolyn Mitchell