(107c) Managing the Risky Business of Scaling Sustainable Technology

Developing a new technology is inherently filled with risk, and a key objective of any successful scaleup effort is mitigating and reducing risk while managing timeline and budget. There are three key components to this approach:

• Assess Risk. A risk assessment should be completed in the early stages of scaleup, evaluating risk areas such as technical, commercial, supply chain, etc. Scoring each risk by impact and probability provides an understanding of the most critical risks, so that these can be prioritized with mitigation steps outlined to support the scaleup effort. This risk assessment should be re-evaluated periodically to assess the impact of mitigation steps of addressing high risk areas, and to determine if any changes internal or externally have changes the risk factors.
• Decouple scaleup parameters. Next, it is important to decouple and prioritize the scaleup parameters. This effort is informed by the risk assessment. The lab scale is best for evaluating the intrinsic parameters associated with the chemistry/biology of the system, while engineering parameters are better evaluated using calculations and modeling at early stages, with data generation at larger scales. We can use this approach to develop a scaleup plan in which we define critical objectives for each stage.
• Develop multi-scale data in parallel. Finally, multi-scale data is critical to any scaleup effort. A very sequential approach to scaleup—aiming to hit commercial targets at each scale before moving to the next--can reduce risk significantly, but at the expense of timeline. Timeline is a key driver for any new technology, so an alternate approach is to make strategic risk decisions and do much of this work in parallel—advancing to the next scale even while working on proving out commercial targets at the smaller scale. With the risk assessment in place, and a clear scaleup plan, this risk can be managed while accelerating the timeline.

This talk will elaborate on this approach, illustrated by real world examples in which these principles have been applied to effectively manage risk during the scaleup of sustainable fuel and chemical technologies.