NGen Manufacturing Program

NGen Manufacturing Program

Eligible Activities

NGen Manufacturing Program.

To be considered for NGen Manufacturing Program funding, projects must:

• Be transformational in scale or impact for its participants;
• Have a wider benefit to Canada’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem; and
• Help Canadian manufacturing companies compete globally.

Additionally, projects must align to at least one of four project streams:

• High-Potential Technology Development: Developing and scaling technology solutions that give Canadian manufacturing companies a distinct competitive advantage;
• Technology Adoption: Game-changing technologies applied in transforming existing manufacturing processes;
• Technology Diffusion: Developing new manufacturing capabilities based on the application of advanced technologies; and
• Ecosystem Development: Development of new training programs, tools, and testbeds that fill gaps in Canada’s infrastructure in support of manufacturing.

Cluster Building Stream

• Eligible activities should foster collaboration and cooperation among SMEs to speed up the growth of advanced technologies for Canadian manufacturing;
• Projects must be developed by Canadian clusters and stimulate a manufacturing transformation for participating SMEs and Canada as a whole;
• NGen will only fund eligible Innovation Supercluster Initiative (ISI) costs. Eligible costs incurred in Cluster Building activities must involve support for enhancing collaboration among Canadian SMEs in advanced manufacturing;
• The maximum eligible costs of a project initiated by a cluster may not exceed $150,000, and must be applied to Canadian subcontractors;
• If there are multiple organizations in the project cluster, a Collaboration Agreement must be agreed upon to outline the roles of project partners, how project costs will be shared, and joint risk management provisions. The Collaboration Agreement should also outline how IP resulting from the Cluster Building project will be managed for member organizations; and
• A one-time, non-refundable Ngen fee, equal to 2.5% of total project costs, will be charged to funded project clusters. How this fee is paid is up to the discretion of cluster members.

Eligible Costs:

• Staffing costs;
• Office costs;
• Legal costs;
• Travel Costs; and
• Costs incurred for joint assessments, studies and reports

Pilot Project Stream

Project costs must be between $100,000 and $500,000. To be considered for NGen Manufacturing Program Pilot Project Stream funding, projects should align under the following criteria:

• Must be transformational in scale or impact for its participants;
• Must have a wider benefit to Canada’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem;
• Must develop technology to improve manufacturing processes and de-risk adoption; and
• Must involve advanced manufacturing and include at least one of the following:
  • Risk mitigation planning;
  • IP Commercialization strategy development;
  • Business case development;
  • Manufacturing process development;
  • Technical program development;
  • Technology development; and
  • Manufacturing process scale-up from bench-scale toward full-scale.

Eligible Costs

• Sub-contracts and consultancy fees;
• Salaries and wages;
• Equipment related to project; and
• Materials and supplies.

Feasibility Study Projects

Project costs must be between $50,000 and $200,000 and must be competed by within nine months of initiation. Types of studies that may be undertaken include, but are not limited to:

• Initial design or technical work to define and characterize the manufacturing principles involved;
• Developing a refined understanding of the manufacturing innovation under consideration and an analysis of the expected impact of the implementation;
• A verification of the potential benefits of a new technology or process innovation enough to drive a decision to continue development thereof;
• An economic analysis assessing the potential impact of the innovation;
• A risk assessment and a strategy to minimize the risk of development of the innovation;
• A market study defining the potential impact of the innovation on the revenues, market share, and profitability of the partner organizations and potential impact on GDP and employment in Canadian manufacturing;
• A proposal for the development of the exploitable ideas from the innovation, a detailed development plan to produce a prototype or demonstrator; and
• An improved business process enabled by an advanced manufacturing technology or process.

Eligible Expenses

• Salaries and Wages
• Sub-Contracts and consultancy fees
• Materials and Supplies