It is well known that R&D departments and laboratories are constantly working to develop new materials that are increasingly innovative and meet current market needs. As a result, Research and Development teams need to find more easily and quickly the mixtures and products that have been developed in their department so that they do not have to redo the same formulations several times.
In a context of perpetual technological change, where the need for innovation and digitalization is more necessary than ever and is a factor of competitiveness, R&D departments are faced with several challenges in their daily work such as:
Define and Leverage your recipes
The recipe of a chemical product or material is clearly a key differentiating success factor for companies. Firstly, saving formulation data enables the company’s intangible capital to be recycled by drawing on existing knowledge. For example, in the field of plastics processing, the development of plastic formulations must meet defined mechanical and aesthetic properties. Once validated, the recipe enables an industrialization process to be set up in order to make the Research and Development cost profitable.
The added value of the formulations requires compliance with regulatory requirements in terms of equipment and production, such as the European directive 2006/42/EC called “Machinery”. The success of formulation projects will be attributed to the skills of the team in place and its ability to meet these requirements. However, innovation is often only accessible to companies capable of supporting increasingly heavy investments in research, development and industrialization. This is why the use of ingredients and the capitalization of proportions allow rational use of resources, in particular, thanks to the definition of a precise need for supply and therefore savings in raw materials.
Rationalize costs by reusing existing knowledge
While financial aspects are increasingly important in high-tech markets, it is just as important to rationalize the cost of materials as it is to rationalize the cost of people. For example, thanks to the capitalization of work already carried out, high value-added work time is focused on developing or improving new formulas, based on previous trials. This allows experts to refocus on their core business rather than on making duplicates or potentially searching for existing information.
Reduce non-compliance and increase productivity
In addition, thanks to the capitalization of formulation data in a central repository, non-quality is immediately recognized by the system. The risk of invalid entries is therefore reduced. The most frequent cases of error are the entry of a percentage on a secondary ingredient, for example, active ingredients and adjuvants in pharmaceuticals, or QSP viscosity and pH in cosmetics, resulting in a negative percentage on the main ingredient, such as solvents in chemistry. Or the addition of the same ingredient in a formula. Moreover, this centralization of formulation data allows real-time visualization of the finished product, integrating the total mass of the product and the associated cost.
Tracking raw materials
Ideally, a market economy should allow for an optimal allocation of resources within an economic system. Raw materials have always been an essential input for product development. This is why structuring these raw materials in an adapted tool allows facilitated traceability. It is also important to be able to capitalize on all the data relating to them such as recyclability, heat resistance, etc.
The company BASSETTI with its Technical Expertise Management is committed to implement methods, tools and IT processes to structure, archive and disseminate this knowledge with high added value within the company.
To learn more about how we can help you manage your formulations, request a replay of our webinar:
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