Several diverse industries play a key role in improving the portfolios of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Technologies Program's (ITP's) seven Industries of the Future (IOF). These industries perform vital roles in supporting the IOF industries, providing materials and processes necessary to form and fabricate the products of the IOF industries before they are marketed to end-use industries. They also provide process optimization software, technologies, methodologies, design rules, etc. to support design practices in material processing and metal forming and fabrication in the production of the end-use products. The seven supporting industries currently addressed by the Supporting Industries (SI) subprogram are:
- Industrial Heating Equipment
- Heat Treating
- Forging
- Welding
- Powder Metallurgy and Particulate Materials
- Advanced Ceramics
- Carbon Products
The research for the last two industries in the list are currently carried out under the sponsorship of the other DOE programs.