Docent Phase 3 – Technology Transfer

Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRLs) along with the MRL Assessment (MRA) process were developed within the U.S. Department of Defense as a key factor to identify and mitigate manufacturing risks within the supply chain. While MRLs and MRAs can have impact broadly across the defense industrial base and overall U.S. manufacturing sector, currently the process is only well understood and leveraged where there are contractual requirements in large DoD programs. Current solutions for this process are labor intensive and lack the flexibility, adaptability, and scalability necessary for wider adoption of MRLs and MRAs.

The Docent MRL tool will take a manufacturing organization through the process of performing MRA and prompt them to create an action plan for any MRL criteria that have not been met. Docent was developed during earlier phases of this project, but the solution was not ready for commercial deployment. The team will pursue an active transition of the MRL software tool through customer-specific enhancements, ultimately establishing a baseline sustainability model for support and growth of the Docent tool. The primary objective of this effort is to drive adoption of Docent through pilot implementations, allowing the team to identify value-add features and further prepare the tool for broad adoption.

A commercially available Docent MRL tool will offer significant value to the DoD manufacturing base. The Docent tool will make MRAs more accessible and potentially drive adoption of MRL/MRA practices within the U.S. manufacturing sector. This will create for a stronger DoD supply chain as more organizations utilize MRLs to help mitigate manufacturing risks.