Three Keys to Successful New Product and Process Development

Managing the development and implementation of new technology or a new process from lab through start-up is an exciting challenge that is certainly the goal of many process engineers.  However, very few engineers and chemists actually have the opportunity to manage and successfully implement new technologies that start out as an idea all the way through to manufacturing a profitable product.  More common is the challenge to manage the re-development of an existing process or technology with the goal of making a product or process more profitable, safer, more environmentally compliant, etc. but the same approach can be successful.

Three key techniques to the successful management of process development will be discussed, using examples from a coated product / process R&D development program to illustrate the techniques.  First, intellectual downstreaming was used, which helped to envision the ideal product and process to produce it.  A cross-functional team comprising engineers, operators, management and consultants from the plant, divisional, and corporate levels accomplished this step.  Second, a systematic program was managed by focusing initially on how to make the “ideal product” from both a fundamental first principles basis and ideal plant basis compared to the new customer requirements or the existing plant basis.  Managing this “gap analysis” then lead to either the development of the R&D plan with decision points or “gates” or the incorporation of the correct and sufficient capital improvements necessary for the existing process to produce the desired material.  Third, managing the superb execution of the all resources working in parallel or consecutively was required to minimize the process development or re-development time-frame while pursuing ideas and options that can eventually lead to revolutionize the process.  These diverse resources to be managed included teams of chemists and external consultants at the lab-scale, teams of engineers & co-op students at the pilot and plant-scale, state-of-the-art surface science / powder technology techniques  & analytical methods, and sophisticated computer models.

These techniques for the development of new and existing technology will be discussed in a case study.  This case study describes R&D New Product & Process Development for a novel coated product that could consistently meet key customer quality criteria for a new application.  Meeting constantly evolving market projections and new product specifications required equipment for this coating process that was larger than anything previously built and operated.  Success was achieved through the utilization of the intellectual downstreaming, a systematic program using gap analysis and gates, and superb execution.