“Fieldlabs like SAM XL are essential to secure a strong Dutch competitive position on a global scale”, explains our business developer Aydin van den Bergh during a visit of Dutch parliament member Joost Sneller (political party D66) and senior policy officer Innovation Rick Fransen (Dutch Province of South-Holland). “We need to bridge the difficult steps in climbing up the TRL scale (Technology Readiness Level). Especially in the mid-TRL, also well-known as ‘the valley of death’, where a lot of innovations stall, or even die a silent death.”
Many innovations face difficulties in organising financial support to evolve to a viable product. After developing a new technology, start-ups and scale-ups need funding for trials, demonstrations and modifying a product or service before it is ready to market. Governmental funding is highly under pressure, while the industry wants an outlook on off the shelf products or services before they invest. SAM XL and other fieldlabs are bridging that gap to transform the ‘valley of death’ in – what we call – ‘the valley of opportunity’. Aydin: “The Netherlands is, through the Dutch universities and research institutions, innovative and is able to develop new technologies. But getting those new technologies to the market in a profitable business, is a major challenge. With fieldlabs, where the universities, research institutions, governments and the industry come together and jointly invest, we can overcome that threshold. Where in other countries innovations would stall in the maturing process, our technologies would be able to continue the road to market through the Dutch fieldlabs’ valley of opportunity”.
At SAM XL, we develop smart robotics technology for the manufacturing industry. Smart robotics enable the manufacturing of products with the utmost precision, with a constant, high quality. Aydin: “This is essential in the long run: after 10-15 years, the quality of conventionally manufactured products, will deteriorate. Therefore, at SAM XL, we are focussing both on smart manufacturing as well as smart maintenance and repair.”