clean-tech

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80% leakage

April 26, 2012 in Uncategorized | No comments

“What percentage of the manufacturing spend by Colorado cleantech OEMs leaves the state?” was the question poised at a recent meeting of the Colorado Cleantech Supply Chain Advisory Board.

“80% leaks out” was the answer.

That’s a pretty big number.  It means that for every bracket bought from a Colorado supplier, four are bought out of state or out of the country. It also means that there is inherent savings to be had in logistics costs and lead time, risk avoidance and quality control, if our manufacturers could only source more of their supply chain locally.  Of course this is a complex question and the cost advantages of low labor rate countries can often overwhelm all other issues, but it is a question nonetheless worth asking.

And of course this is not just a cleantech issue; it’s a problem that cuts across all industry segments.  The solutions are as complex as the question, but include building up a strong, well focused supply chain locally; educating manufacturers on the cost of ownership and ROI advantages of sourcing locally; and working with government and labor to bring down the costs of manufacturing locally.  China Inc is not likely to start quaking in fear anytime soon, but we can do better. We can leak less.

Chuck

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CU Cleantech Incubation Open House

March 29, 2012 in Uncategorized | No comments

CU Cleantech is holding an Open House to present commercialization assessments on six exciting clean-tech technologies, one of which Zebulon Systems has been helping to support.  Join us on April 18th at the CU Deming Center in Boulder, CO.  For more details see http://cucleantech.com/

Chuck

 

 

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Productizing clean-tech redeaux

January 6, 2012 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

We’ve talked with a gaggle of clean-tech companies over the past couple of years, and worked with a handful.  Lots of interesting technologies but a lot fewer manufacturing ready products. It’s a challenging area as the incumbent technologies are cheap and mature and have been long since productized.

Last year I also blogged about Productizing clean-tech, concerning the state of clean-tech in general and here in Colorado in particular. At a macro level not that much has changed: the world is still warming, politicians are still avoiding making tough decisions, and fossil fuel alternatives are still cheap.  From a business point of view however, clean-tech seems like its a tougher sell.  The failure of Solyndra, while not unusual for VC backed companies–maybe 2 in 10 such make it typically–has been so publicized as to cast a pale on the industry, and given succor to the resurging drill-baby-drill crowd. Competition from China has also heated up in almost any sector of the clean-tech world (see our blog on What businesses worry about on Main Street ), from LED lighting to solar.  So there is basically competition not only from low cost fossil fuels but also from low cost China.

Which does not mean despair, but it does mean that to succeed in clean-tech a very cost optimized product is needed.  Which is where Zebulon Solutions (warning: shameless plug) can help: we’re experts at getting the cost out of a product’s design, out of the supply chain, and out of the manufacturing process. We’ve optimized the mechanical enclosure of a human-powered generator; established supply chains for a novel product that reuses CO2 for its cleaning solvent properties, and helped redesign smart lighting controllers for cost and performance.  We’re supporting a program at the University of Colorado to investigate the feasibility of a solar wafer processing technology coming out of the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) here in Golden, Colorado. We’ve conducted DFMEAs on water purity monitoring systems and hybrid generators, and we’ve set up inventory management processes for an electric bike company. It’s a tough slog,  but we’re doing our part.

Oh yeah, and we still drive my little green Prius to meetings. Not as fancy as a company Beemer, but it gets us there and helps just a touch with the environment.

Chuck

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Want to be a Shark?

May 6, 2011 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

This was the most interesting email subject line I had seen in a while, so I jumped at the chance to be a shark for a day, torturing–er, judging–business plan pitches from MBA wannabes at the local b-school. I do a lot of deal screens for the local venture club, so it was not too far afield, even though perhaps productization was not the number one concern on many of these new companies.

The flip side of that coin, however, is that business plans are, or should be, a top concern of many of our productization customers, especially in the clean-tech sector, where we work with a disproportionate number of startups.  As I commented on in a previous blog, it is challenging for clean-tech companies to raise money despite record high prices for oil. And from our own biased little corner of the world, a fair amount of capital is required to get a product into manufacturing.  Besides productization costs (shameless plug: including the services Zebulon Solutions offers)–DFx, tooling, industrialization, production test development, regulatory approval, design validation testing, supply chain set up, process optimization, etc.–there are boring yet expensive things like buying inventory. All this takes capital for a physical product (software is a whole ‘nother beast…).  So raising money is crucial for many companies, and it all starts with a business plan.

This is not a business blog–there are many such critters out there–but the quick basics of a business plan include:

* Market need: what the itch is that needs scratching

* Product solution: how the itch will be scratched

* Market details: how big the market is, what it looks like, and who the competitors are

* Go to market plan: sales channels and get to production strategy

* The team: investors are in violent agreement that this is the most important  part

* Financials: P&L and balance sheet summary (cash is king!)

* Investment opportunity: how much money is being solicited and what is being offered

As to the b-school competition, I did channel my inner shark , ripping gaping chunks of flesh—OK, more like gaping chunks of marketing lapses and financial gaps.  While many plans were a bit underdeveloped, there were in fact several companies with promise, companies that had made some progress, had a team and a market, and had promise for a return for investors.  Not for me to give details but the top two companies were into blimps and cupcakes respectively.  Two of my favorite things…

Chuck

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Productizing Clean-Tech

April 21, 2011 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

Had the opportunity yesterday to attend the Clean Energy Expo up in Fort Collins, sponsored by the Clean Energy Supercluster at Colorado State University.  Had in my mind that I would do some networking and maybe even a little clandestine reverse selling of Zebulon Solutions productization services to the clean-tech companies exhibiting there.  Instead I got a good education on the challenges faced by clean-tech entrepreneuers from luminaries like Bill Ritter, the former governor of Colorado, and Dr. Sam Baldwin, Chief Science Officer for renewable energy at the DOE, as well as some distinguished members of the CSU faculty and various entrepreneurs. Some takeaways:

1. Raising money for clean-tech is tough.  Long time to volume combined with the lack of a pricing premium when selling to early adopters makes this tough.  Add in uncertainty in government support (some interesting graphs showing how wind energy installations gyrates year after year based on tax credit status) and general low R&D spending by energy companies.

1.1 Raising money for clean-tech in Colorado is even tougher.  In California, VCs match every dollar of DOE funding for clean-tech with $2.  In Boston its $4.  In Colorado its $0.12.  Ouch

2 There are some intriguing technologies out there.  But there are lots of milestones for these emerging companies to hit before they get to productization, before they get to market.  Technology hurdles, policy hurdles, climate change deniers, and relentless competition from cheap fossil fuels.

3. For those who defy science and want to believe that CO2 will not / does not cause global warming, here is an issue that may be a whole lot tougher to deny: all this CO2 in the air is leading to acidification of the oceans.  Basic chemistry, or so I am told.  Like a poorly kept swimming pool, the PH is dropping.    If the PH drops enough, marine life takes a hit. Basic biology.  Think devastation of fisheries…

3.1 For those who are not climate change deniers, acidification of the oceans may be an even worse nightmare. Think devastation of fisheries…

3.2 Oh yeah, and it’s coming soon, like 30 years. 

3.3 Worry. Care. Act.

4. Kudos to Governor Ritter for sticking with clean energy when he left the governor’s mansion.  It’s clearly not the path to quick money in lobbying or even big oil that many other exiting politicians take.

In terms of productization, I foresee a massive demand for our services–DFMEAs, validation testing, supply chain development and the like. Clean-energy products will need to be reliable, manufacturable, and really really cheap to compete with fossil fuels.  They will need to be well tested and proven out to compete with 50-year-old technologies.  They will have complex supply chains, hopefully a good portion of which will be domestic.  But it will take some time to mature, to flourish.

We’re already working in this area; we have five clean-tech customers by latest count, mostly smaller projects. Some neat products: electric bikes, industrial equipment that uses CO2 for cleaning, hybrid motor electronics.  We’re doing DFMEAs, supply chain development, design reviews, and helping with business plans. But many of these customers have other challenges too, raising capital ranking high on nearly every list.

We’re in this for the long haul; hopefully a lot of others are too.

Chuck

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A case full of studies

March 24, 2011 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Normally I don’t use this bully pulpit to hawk our wares directly, but a number of folks have been clamoring for more information as to what real productization engagements look like (hey I must be hanging with Zeb too much; I’m beginning to sound like him).  Accordingly we have recently updated our  presentation of case studies, available on our web site under, yup, you guessed it, Case Studies. No points for originality, but we do provide some good real world examples across the spectrum of productization services, from fractional executive engagements to thorough design reviews for manufacturability / testability / etc (aka DFx) to simple, or not so simple, DFMEAs. We also show how these services were applied to a variety of market segments, including medical, clean-tech and industrial.

Chuck

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