Who Should Use ARL?

Organizations with large, diversified technology portfolios that may span multiple types and scales of technology solutions can benefit from using the ARL framework. DOE offices use ARL to inform program design, investment, and risk management decisions.

Although there are existing frameworks² that capture the various elements of ARL, ARL attempts to gather commercial adoption risks in a comprehensive and structured way that is applicable to a wide range of technology types – from small consumer applications to large-scale infrastructure deployments – and allows for comparisons across different portfolios. DOE’s technology portfolio, for example, has an expansive range that includes consumer-facing software at one end to clean hydrogen hubs at the other.

Using the ARL assessement allows organizations to apply the industry best practice of managing technology risk alongside adoption risk. This can be used to gain a strategic view of an existing technology portfolio, or to design and set goals for a new program. The tool is not intended to be a rigorous and quantitative analysis across each dimension of adoption risk, though detailed risk registers can be developed using the ARL framework as a starting point

The tool is deliberately simple to allow for easy adoption and extensibility. The power of the ARL assessment is to quickly identify where there may be critical barriers in a technology’s pathway to market that need to be addressed for full-scale deployment to happen and the movement required to have the technology reach the next stage of the RDD&D continuum.

Innovators and Technical Subject Matter Experts

For those who may typically be focused on driving technology readiness for earlier stage technologies, the assessment process itself can spur important conversations about how their technology solution can be applied in commercial settings, and how areas of non-technical risk may stand in the way of adoption. 

While these individuals may not be experts in non-technical risk areas, such conversations can spur early identification of risk mitigation opportunities, R&D design changes or re-prioritizations, and even early commercial partnerships that can all improve the technology’s ultimate value.

Researchers, Project Managers, and Accelerators

The rigor of the ARL assessment provides a framework for conducting repeated, objective analysis of a technology’s adoption risks. 

For researchers, the ARL framework can be used to guide deep-dive research, conduct stakeholder interviews, and identify key datapoints to investigate. Additionally, ARLs provide a means for consistently communicating key insights and research outcomes.

For project managers, this allows teams to effectively plan activities that will de-risk the technology and track the most effective mitigation strategies for driving down certain risk dimensions. 

Portfolio Managers And Organizational Leaders

For managers and leaders, ARL assessments can inform investment decisions across a technology portfolio over time. When aggregated together, multiple ARL assessments can be used to compare like technologies in a portfolio against one another – enabling leaders to take action that can de-risk dimensions across multiple components of a portfolio. Finally, the framework can also create a taxonomy of technologies and suggest useful key performance indicators to track to assess the progress and health of their portfolios. 

The assessment process facilitates discussions with technical staff around areas of risk and potential mitigation strategies, and identifies blind spots where additional investment, frequently in the form of research, deeper market analysis, or policy action, is needed.

Insurers and Capital Allocators

Private-sector commercialization participants use ARLs as a means for objectively evaluating the risk profile of a technology. For capital allocators, ARLs inform due diligence processes. For insurers, the framework’s ability to codify risks for technologies of any maturity helps expand the scope of insurable technologies – particularly low-TRL products.

¹ Note: ARL encompasses key business risks associated with a technology solution, but does not address other project- and company-specific risk factors, such as the composition of the leadership team. 

²For example, the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Readiness Levels specifically address manufacturability in detail, which is one of the dimensions of the ARL framework. ARPA-E’s Commercial Readiness Level scale breaks down sequential steps in bringing a tech to market.