Innovation in the tiered supply chain in the Aerospace Defense and Advanced Manufacturing (ADAM) sector is not always aligned with the strategic interests of end users. Suppliers with scarce resources, invest independently in technology development with imperfect knowledge of specific performance requirements and potential demand. End-user innovators, limited by the availability/ affordability of advanced materials in the supply chain, either compromise their innovation capabilities or attempt to invent the technology needed. Result: immature technology (TRL6/7, MRL 6/7) is sitting in industry, university and government laboratories and all-market demand and manufacturing scale opportunities are unknown. An inefficient, slow process that rarely yields end-user market available advanced materials at the lowest costs.

The NDCC innovation infrastructure is designed to align technology development with potential demand in defense and commercial markets, facilitate the collaborative leveraging of resources (industry, university & government) to transition immature technology to meet varied material specifications for multiple markets, develop the optimum manufacturing processes to take advantage of scale and identify workforce skills needs related to new technologies/ materials. Result: End user innovators have access to desired, affordable, advanced materials, supply chain members leverage scarce resources with clear knowledge of multi-market potential for their new materials innovations, and finally, innovation at all levels is accelerated.