The determinants of industrial application conditions for materials surface engineering technologies were listed using the reference data provided in the technology roadmaps and technology information sheets prepared for each of the 140 technologies analyzed and were presented as the selected examples only. A framework of the technology roadmap (Fig. 22) corresponds to the first quarter of the Cartesian system of coordinates. Three time intervals for 2010–2011, 2020, and 2030, respectively, are given on the axis of abscissa, and the time horizon for the overall results of the research provided on the map is 20 years. Seven main layers are provided on the axis of coordinates of the technology roadmap responding, respectively, to the following more and more detailed questions: When? Why? What? How? Where? Who? How much? Overview of the relevant layers is presented in Table 4.

The main layers of the technology roadmap are ordered according to their hierarchy starting from the uppermost, most general ones, determining all social and economic premises, reasons, and causes of the actions followed, through the middle layers characterizing a product and its manufacturing technologies, ending with the bottom layers detailing the organizational and technical issues concerning the place, contractors, and costs. The middle layers of the technology roadmap are subjected to two types of influence – pull from the uppermost layers and push from the bottom layers. The relationships between the individual layers and sub-layers of the technology roadmap are presented with the different types of arrows representing, respectively, cause-and-effect relationships, capital ties, time correlations, and two-directional data and/or resources flows. The technology roadmaps are a very convenient tool for a comparative analysis enabling to select the best technology according to the criterion chosen. Besides, their flexibility is their undisputed advantage, and, if needed, additional sub-layers can be added to or expanded for the maps according to the circumstances of the industry, size of an enterprise, scale of the company’s business, or an entrepreneur’s individual expectations. An example of a technology roadmap shown in Fig. 23 was made for reactive magnetron sputtering (RMS). Technology information sheets, containing technical information very helpful in implementing a specific technology in the industrial practice, especially in SMEs lacking the capital allowing to conduct own research, are detailing and supplementing the technology roadmaps and are provided as an example. A selected, representative technology information sheet made for RMS is given in Fig. 24a, b.

Technology roadmaps and information sheets prepared for 140 critical technologies of materials surface engineering make up the Book of Critical Technologies of Surface Structure and Properties Formation of Engineering Materials (Dobrzan´ska-Danikiewicz 2013). It is estimated that the Book of Critical Technologies is to be available on the Web as an e-book and information contained therein will be disseminated via the Internet without any limitations and for free, using a publicly available (open access) web platform in line with a newly established concept of e-transfer of technology (Dobrzan´ska-Danikiewicz and Lukaszkowicz 2010; Dobrzan´ska-Danikiewicz et al. 2010b, 2011f). The technology e-transfer Internet platform planned to be created is to be made up of three compatible functional modules embracing e-consulting, e-training, and e-information,  coupled with a technology database. In e-consulting, technology roadmaps and information sheets will be available being a compendium of the knowledge considered on priority innovative technologies, characterized in a uniform manner, enabling to compare them easily according to the selected materials science, technological, or organization criterion. E-training allows the self-education of beneficiaries by access to specialist training materials and using a self-control system in form of tests that can be completed multiple times until a result satisfactory for the user is reached. Supplementary, highly specialized training materials, available mainly in English, are represented by articles and monographs collected in a publicly available database of scientific works, a so-called open repository. Updates concerning web platform resources, conferences, workshops, and other initiatives related to current activity will be covered by e-information.
The concept of setting up an e-technology transfer center is the continuation of the idea and the extension of the aims of e-foresight to incorporate the domain of application and implementation of knowledge on the selected engineering materials surface properties and structure formation technologies and, in general, material processes technologies and engineering materials processing, primarily in the machine and electrotechnical industry. The synergic influence of both concepts of e-foresight and technology e-transfer creates a full and integrated system of prediction of the development of surface properties and structure formation technologies and of implementation of the results of such research in an extensive environment of managers and engineers employed in industrial entities. In line with the adopted conceptual assumptions, interested individual can be provided, anytime and without any restrictions, with all the information, while the monitoring of current issues – being merely an indirect way of interaction with enterprises – should allow to focus research works on satisfying the real needs of a knowledge- and innovation-based economy.