PROGRAM OVERVIEW:

Responding to a growing demand from inventors, business start-ups, and small manufacturers, the Plastics Technology Center (PTC) has developed Keystone Ideas for the cost-effective design and development of new products for industrial, consumer, medical, and other significant markets. The basic need stems from a lack of sufficient capital and technical knowledge to take a product from concept to production. These shortfalls have been shown to seriously impede product commercialization and tend to slow economic growth.

Keystone Ideas is a low-cost, easily accessible resource for product design, development, and mentoring where inventors, start-ups, and small manufacturers can successfully launch ideas from concept to production. The service is to be utilized by those that have viable products to offer the market, but are not able to secure the capital and technical support to pursue traditional product design and development services.

The main objectives of Keystone Ideas are:

• Increase early access to technical assistance resources.
  
  
• Increase access to technology assistance across Pennsylvania, especially in rural areas where it is currently unavailable.
  
  
• Promote interactions via the Web to reduce time and money.
  
  
• Expedite the product development and commercialization phase of the product lifecycle by walking customers with "feasible" product ideas through a four-phase process.
  
  
• Act as a clearinghouse for plastics-related information and other forms of assistance, such as business planning, funding, patent searches, Web site development, tooling and molding sources, prototyping sources, and others.
  
  
• Reduce the capital required for the product design and development phase, providing additional funds to expedite the commercialization phase.