Excerpt from Polymers: Technical Activities 1994; Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory

This year's report is organized according to the programs of the Division and those of its parent Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory. This presentation provides the management context in which we view individual projects in order to make our motivation for the work clearer. We also hope this will encourage our customers to offer comments and advice on ways we can be more effective in our work.

The Polymers Division is responsible for providing standards, measurement methods, and fundamental concepts of polymer science to assist those U. S industries that produce or use synthetic polymers in essential parts of their business. During this past year we have paid special attention to the ways in which we set priorities for our programs and have begun to explore some more formal methods of measuring the results of our work. Ideally, setting program priorities would lead directly to some measurement of the degree of attainment of the objectives. Of the programs. In practice, this is seldom the case. Our work rarely leads directly to the development of new technologies or products where the economic effects can be readily estimated. Instead we are charged with helping to provide the measurement basis for our civilian economy a part of the the technological infrastructure. Measuring the quantitative impact of such work has proved to be exceptionally difficult although the results of some well chosen examples have shown gratifyingly large rates of return on the research investments.

The Division has focussed a majority of its resources on specific industrial sectors. This has allowed us to assess the needs of each industry group and plan a response that is appropriate to our capabilities and role. For example, workshops and discussions with electronics manufacturers have helped defined our program in electronic packaging. As a result, we have concentrated on the role of materials in electronic packaging and have begun to examine some of the measurement methods that provide the critical materials data to evaluate process and product quality or to develop new packaging technologies.

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