Summer 2018: Volume 5 Number 3

What scientist or engineer wouldn’t benefit from free, qualified, technical information research? At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I’d like to offer free technical information research from a source that has been doing this very thing for many years and for thousands of satisfied clients—DSIAC.

DSIAC is funded by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) to provide information research and analysis for DoD and federal government users to stimulate innovation, foster collaboration, and eliminate redundancy. A primary service we offer to fulfill this purpose is 4 hours of free technical inquiry research. Our ability to offer this free service helps enhance DoD research efforts and leverage untapped synergetic opportunities that lie within the defense systems community.

Our domain of expertise for technical inquiry research encompasses nine subject areas: Advanced Materials; Autonomous Systems; Directed Energy; Energetics; Military Sensing; Non-lethal Weapons; Reliability, Maintainability, Quality, Supportability, Interoperability (RMQSI); Survivability and Vulnerability; and Weapon Systems. Any and all inquiries that touch on these subject areas are within the scope of our research expertise.

We work with the client to ensure we grasp the topic and scope of the question and then begin to conduct our 4 hours of free technical information research.

The type of technical inquiries we field and respond to varies. Many inquiries request our support with identifying recent publications and research conducted on a given technical topic; some are looking for available or in-development technologies that meet given capability requirements; and some simply need an answer to a direct technical question. Please take a few minutes to read through short summaries of recent notable technical inquiries that we have responded to by accessing this link: https://www.dsiac.org/resources/notable-ti. These summaries are intended to give the defense community a sampling of the wide range of questions presented and responses produced by DSIAC under the free 4 hours of information research support.

This is how we field and respond to technical inquiries: A client initiates a technical inquiry by sending it to us via our online submission portal, through email, or over the phone. We work with the client to ensure we grasp the topic and scope of the question and then begin to conduct our 4 hours of free technical information research. To get the requested answer(s) to the question, we tap into a deep well of various resources including, but not limited to, DTIC’s R&E Gateway, our network of subject matter experts, in-house technical personnel, assorted DoD research resources, and many open-source databases. We compile our research results into a response report that is then delivered to the client. All of this is managed by technical research analysts who get the response to the client within 10 business days or less.

If you have never taken advantage of our free technical inquiry service, I would highly encourage you to give us a try. Just log in to DSIAC.org, type your inquiry into our online form (available on every DSIAC.org webpage), send us an email (contact@dsiac.org), or give us a call (443-360-4600)! There really is no cost to do this or any hidden fees and stipulations in fine print, unlike an infomercial! We are simply here to help the defense scientist or engineer be more informed in their research efforts with a “one-stop shop.”