|
HOME
Issue One Contents:
2-1
Scoring R&D Success:
Metrics of Champions
[read article]
2-2
Speed-Based R&D at Dow Chemical
2-3
Process Initiatives Drive
New Product Market Acceptance
[read article]
Issue 1
Issue 3
 |
2-2
Speed-Based R&D at
Dow Chemical
When it comes to R&D
investment and value creation, few understand it better than Kurt W.
Swogger, vice president of Plastics R&D for The Dow Chemical Company,
who will receive a Product Development and R&D Metrics MVP Award in Chicago, Illinois, on November 8.
Swogger's speed-based R&D approach is a highly integrated philosophy and
practice that links technology to both market needs and new
opportunities. Operating elements include talent alignment and
motivation, flexible allocation of resources, predictive modeling,
parallel work processes, early customer involvement and a focus on
results.
Specifically, an area that gets great attention is the time-to-market
process. Swogger introduced as one critical component the parallel
processing of work across all the key elements of new product
development so that critical path and/or long lead-time issues are
revealed up front. The intent was to reduce the typical seven to 15 year
time frame required to launch a new product into the market, and to
create and capture value from new products faster.
A part of this overall concept is the flexible allocation of resources,
a “series of mechanisms,” that enables Swogger and his team to “pull
resources rather quickly” when an issue or opportunity arise. “We’ll
tend to assign six people to a project and get it done in four months,
as an example, instead of having two people work on it for a year,” he
explains. “We have the potential to increase revenues because we can
better focus on the higher value products first; the quicker we can get
them into the market, the better.”
By applying this speed-to-market philosophy, Swogger led the Dow
Plastics R&D organization in the development of a major new
product-driven technology. In the 10 years since its launch, the INSITE™*
technology platform has been leveraged to deliver over one-billion
pounds of new, differentiated products.
Ironically, speed-based R&D originally was instituted as ‘just’ a tool
to develop the INSITE™ technology platform faster, and to move away from
the typical seven to 15 year timeline that it took to move from
invention to market launch, and even longer to make a market impact.
Speed-based wasn’t instantaneously developed, he maintains, but rather
evolved over a period of seven to eight years. What started out with a
couple of principles has evolved over time to a set of about 22.
However, to Swogger three are key: maintain a clear vision of what is to
be accomplished; deploy the right people in the right job; and make sure
that you really understand the market.
* INSITE™ is a trademark of The Dow Chemical Company |
