Through the CA OPR CADENCE Program, NextFlex Provided Support for Eight Startups

by Ed Hendricks, Director of Business Development, NextFlex

Support includes manufacturing and engineering services for projects including health monitoring, turbines and new manufacturing paradigms.

In 2021, NextFlex was awarded $600,000 from the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) military affairs unit to support California’s defense innovation and advanced manufacturing ecosystem through small business development. Through this, we were able to provide support for eight different California-based businesses in the defense industrial base.

Designated by the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Sustainment) as a Defense Manufacturing Community, CADENCE’s goal is to strengthen the resiliency of the national security innovation and manufacturing base through investments in a series of technical assistance, workforce development, research and analysis, and knowledge sharing projects that support critical manufacturing sectors that provide key resources to the American warfighter and to commercial innovation, address the DoD’s modernization priorities, key policies, guidance and directives, and  help maintain national security as one of the largest economic drivers in the State of California.

As part of the CADENCE grant, our role is to support small businesses of the California Defense Industrial Base (DIB) by providing access to cutting edge flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) development and manufacturing capability, while simultaneously bringing them into the FHE manufacturing innovation institute ecosystem.

Below is a summary of five of these recipients and the support that NextFlex provided:

• Sierra Turbines is developing light, reliable and fuel-efficient high-performance gas microturbines. NextFlex adapted a NASA “sans-IC” sensor for the purpose of structural health monitoring of microturbines using additive hybrid electronics.
• Left Coast Engineering (LCE) is a small woman-owned design firm specializing in designing small embedded wireless systems. NextFlex supported LCE by providing a flexible version of their device and printing a LCE sensor/electrode on a stretchable substrate.
• Space Foundry is an equipment manufacturer providing both hardware and plasma jet printing solutions for printing conductors and dielectrics, including solutions for zero-g environments. NextFlex installed Space Foundry hardware and printing solutions in its fabrication facility in San Jose and is evaluating and characterizing the integration of Space Foundry’s plasma jet solutions into other platforms.
• Tag-N-Trac aims to provide customers full stack IoT solutions by integrating multiple modes of technology, including hardware, software and data, to build solutions for large, complex problems. NextFlex prototyped several Tag-N-Trac designs and provided prototypes of one of TNT’s 5G asset tracking labels for supply chain applications.
• Integrated Medical Sensors (IMS) Inc. is creating a simple and effective solution for accurate and painless glucose monitoring for diabetes management. NextFlex is developing a packaging solution for IMS employing advanced hybrid electronics manufacturing.

These eight companies all have exciting potential in such diverse fields as energy, manufacturing and design, physiological monitoring, and environmental sensing. Our mission was to strengthen the Defense Industrial Base by providing support and access to advanced manufacturing technology to these small business recipients.  From here, they’ll be able to continue to improve upon manufacturing processes, enhance product efficacy, and ultimately, strengthen the California industrial base.

Although the NextFlex CADENCE manufacturing and engineering services have been delivered, we will continue working with the companies as they commercialize their products that represent new value to their respective customers and the overall field of electronics manufacturing.