The New River Current Friday, June 08, 2001 Kevin Miller

Copyright 2001 The Roanoke Times

Technical Assistance Program has Offered Advice to Business Owners on Limited Basis for 3 Years Tech to Market Help for Businesses

Virginia Tech officials are expanding a three-year-old pilot program that connects area businesses in need of short-term technical advice with university faculty who specialize in that field.

The Technical Assistance Program, which is offered through Tech's Continuing Education unit, is intended as a framework to more quickly link business owners with expert advice and, at the same time, help Tech faculty extend their outreach to the community.

Businesses with problems in anything from manufacturing to personnel organization can contact the Continuing and Professional Education office and explain their needs. Office staff will then identify which department and faculty members would best handle the request. If a knowledgeable faculty member is available and willing to help, the Technical Assistance Program staff then helps draft the necessary contracts and coordinates payments for the work.

All of this generally happens within a few business days, Tech officials said.

"Basically, it's designed to give industry a way to access Virginia Tech faculty and lab resources in an effort to obtain assistance on problems with manufacturing, distribution and other business issues," said John Casali, head of Tech's Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, which was the first department to try out the new system. Casali said he envisions his department helping regional companies optimize their assembly lines, address safety and ergonomic concerns in manufacturing and organize product distribution.

Ted Settle, Director of Continuing and Professional Education at Tech, said the service is open to any type of business or organization, not merely those with manufacturing or technical questions. "The most obvious would be engineering questions, but if a theater company in Roanoke had a question about drama, they could call up the drama department at Virginia Tech."

"This really gives faculty another option and hopefully lets businesses know that Virginia Tech wants to work with them," Settle said.

The program has been offered on a more limited basis since 1998. During that time, Tech faculty members have undertaken 20 to 30 contracts with local businesses or groups, including measuring noise levels for a medial manufacturer that produces earmuffs for newborns and helping perform evaluations at a local school system, Settle said.

Tech's Board of Visitors approved plans this week to move the program beyond the pilot stage and begin marketing it to businesses in the region.

Settle said he hopes the program will eventually lead to more cooperative agreements with the university and businesses as well as additional job opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. It also gives Tech professors and researchers an opportunity to apply their knowledge outside the classroom and laboratory, he said.

For more information on the Technical Assistance Program, contact Scott Weimer with Continuing and Professional Education at (540) 231-7887.

New Faculty Consulting Program Aids Businesses
By Jeanne M. Garon

A university-sponsored faculty consulting program approved recently by the Board of Visitors is accelerating the rate at which Virginia Tech provides businesses with technical assistance, according to C. Clark Jones, Vice Provost for Outreach. The Technical Assistance Program enables businesses to tap faculty expertise quickly when process-related or technical challenges necessitate a near-immediate response. Jones said the program, active as a pilot project since 1998, has 20 to 30 projects completed or under way. Lead-time between businesses contacting Tech and faculty members starting work on the projects has been as little as two to three working days.

"Our ability to respond quickly and thoroughly to businesses with technical challenges is no secret to the hundreds of companies Tech has served since its inception," Jones said. "The Technical Assistance Program provides a new framework for this outreach to the business community, enabling entrepreneurs and business owners to access more quickly and efficiently the resources Tech can apply to help solve their everyday problems." The program is one of Virginia Tech's economic-development contributions to the state, he said.

The Technical Assistance Program addresses projects that are short in duration, do not involve the generation of new knowledge or intellectual property, and generally do not exceed $25,000 in direct costs. Examples of projects from the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE), the first to deploy the program on a trial basis, include an organizational-transformation planning and assessment activity for a local manufacturer conducted by Eileen Van Aken, ergonomic workstation evaluations for several labor-intensive industries conducted by Maury Nussbaum, and measurements of the hearing-protection capabilities of prematurely born infant earmuffs for a medical-products company conducted by Gary Robinson and John Casali. John Phillips, Tech's economic-development officer, said the program addresses an identified market need: "One origin of the program was direct requests Tech received from local companies. We are an established leader in helping companies perform basic research, intellectual-property development, and product development, but many companies have not been made aware of Tech's interest in helping them address even small-scale problems requiring rapid turn-around."

Ted Settle, director of Continuing and Professional Education, which administers the program, cited a market-research project as another origin of the program. "We know there's a need out there for this program," he said. "Continuing Education is regularly engaged with the marketplace. Staff members visited multiple company sites in Virginia. Instead of asking them `What are your training and educational needs?' we asked the broader question `What are your business problems?' The Technical Assistance Program is, in part, the outcome of this field-based research."

Phillips said the program benefits faculty members as well as participating businesses. Before the program, he said, faculty members who were approached by businesses for small-scale projects often handled the request through their own consulting businesses. "Independent faculty consulting is still an option," he said, "but as university-sponsored activities, Technical Assistance Program initiatives enable faculty members to have greater access to university resources in completing the project, to reduce the time they spend setting up and managing a project, to receive direct pay for their consulting work without having their time bought out, to pay students directly under the program, and to receive recognition for the work in the portion of their annual review that is associated with community outreach."

Phillips also said that initiatives pursued under the program enable faculty members to reduce or eliminate their personal liability for inadvertent errors or omissions.

Settle said the program benefits Virginia Tech and its faculty. His unit's handling of the projects, he said, "allows faculty members to focus their time and attention on clients' core technical problems, providing businesses with quicker answers and faculty members with reduced time spent on administrative tasks." The program also enriches the university's ability to help students prepare themselves to become members of a "very well-trained next generation of professionals and managers," he said.

Faculty members may learn more about the Technical Assistance Program by contacting Scott Weimer in Continuing and Professional Education at 1-7887 or weimers@vt.edu.

Roanoke Times Dispatch

The Roanoke Times Dispatch

New Virginia Tech Program Provides Rapid-Response Aid
to Businesses Needing Technical Assistance

BLACKSBURG, June 4, 2001 - A Virginia Tech program approved today by the Board of Visitors is accelerating the rate at which businesses can receive expert technical assistance from the university, according to C. Clark Jones, Virginia Tech's vice provost for outreach. The Technical Assistance Program enables businesses to tap faculty expertise quickly when process-related or technical challenges necessitate a near-immediate response.

Jones said the program, active as a pilot project since 1998, has 20-30 projects completed or underway. Lead-time between businesses contacting the university and faculty members starting work on the projects has been as little as two to three working days.

"Virginia Tech's ability to respond quickly and thoroughly to businesses with technical challenges is no secret to the hundreds of companies Tech has served since its inception," Jones said. "The Technical Assistance Program provides a new framework for this outreach service the university provides to the business community. The program allows entrepreneurs and business owners to access more quickly and efficiently the university resources that are available to them in solving their everyday problems." The program is one of Virginia Tech's economic development contributions to the state, Jones said. "We are striving to increase, and quickly, the technical vitality of Virginia's businesses."

The Technical Assistance Program addresses projects that are short in duration, do not involve the generation of new knowledge or intellectual property, and generally do not exceed $25,000 in direct costs. Example of projects from the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE), the first to deploy the program on a trial basis, include an organizational transformation planning and assessment activity conducted for a local manufacturer, ergonomic workstation evaluations for several labor-intensive industries, and measurement of the hearing protection capabilities of a prenatal infant earmuff for a medical products company.

John Phillips, Tech's economic development officer, said the program addresses an identified market need: "One origin of the program was direct requests we received from local companies. Virginia Tech is an established leader in helping companies perform basic research, intellectual property development, and product development, but we realized that many Virginia companies were not yet aware of the university's interest in helping them address even small-scale problems requiring rapid turn-around."

Ted Settle, director of Continuing and Professional Education, the unit administering the program, cited a market research project as another origin of the program. "We know there's a need out there for this program," he said. "Continuing and Professional Education is the largest division of University Outreach actively and regularly engaged with the marketplace. Staff visited multiple company sites in Virginia. Instead of asking them `What are your training and educational needs?' we asked the broader question `What are your business problems?' The Technical Assistance Program is the outcome of this field-based research."

Settle said his unit's handling of the technical assistance projects "allows faculty members to focus their time and attention on client businesses' core technical problems, providing them with quicker answers."

Settle said that in addition to serving the business community, the program benefits Virginia Tech in many ways. "Just one example is that the program enriches the university's ability to help undergraduate and graduate students prepare themselves to become members of a very well trained next generation of professionals and managers."

John Casali, ISE department head, agrees with Settle that the program opens new doors for faculty members and graduate students. "Ever since John Phillips and I began discussing and developing the program we've been pleased that projects have brought new possibilities for longer term research relationships and that the faculty have gained new industrial experiences to relate in classroom instruction."

Businesses may learn more about the Technical Assistance Program by contacting Scott Weimer in Continuing and Professional Education at 540/231-7887 or weimers@vt.edu.