BASF – Client Interview

GOH (Science Relations and Innovation Management)

BASF uses its Stage-Gate Model to create innovative chemistry for a sustainable future.  A deep knowledge of chemistry and technology and their applications and know how drive BASF’s development of sustainable solutions in environment and climate, food and nutrition, and quality of life. Discover key activities that help BASF sustain its track-record of innovation excellence.

Creating Innovation Chemistry for a Sustainable Future
Dr. Billy Grierson, GOH (Science Relations and Innovation Management), BASF interviewed by Stage-Gate International

BASF is the world’s leading chemical company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance products, and crop protection products, to oil and gas. Their products and system solutions contribute to conserving resources, ensuring healthy food and nutrition and helping to improve the quality of life.

Over a 30+ year career, Dr. Grierson has played a key role in helping CIBA (now part of BASF) improve innovation in all aspects of the business. His key activities are now heavily weighted toward sustaining innovation excellence within BASF through the design and delivery of training programs, facilitation of problem-solving and idea generation workshops, and coaching around the use of the BASF Innovation Chains process. Dr. Grierson delivered a case presentation at Stage-Gate Innovation Summit debunking 4 common Stage-Gate misconceptions, while reinforcing why it is essential that one key characteristic of a Stage-Gate process must never be compromised.

SGI: Tell us a little about BASF’s R&D organization.

BG: As a cross-sectional technology, chemistry offers solutions in many areas. In our unique position as an integrated global chemical company, we can make an important contribution with our innovations: “We create chemistry for a sustainable future” is our watchword.

At about 70 research and development centers located in Europe, North America and Asia, our 10,100 researchers in various disciplines are engaged in about 2,800 research projects around the world. Our BASF central research and development organization is also integrated into an interdisciplinary and international network: in about 1,950 cooperative partnerships we are working closely together with partners from science and industry worldwide to develop solutions for a sustainable future.

SGI: Where is your group located?

BG: BASF is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany, but the company has a global network of more than 18 research groups. In Europe we have research sites in Ludwigshafen, Münster, Lemförde, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Heidelberg and Trostberg in Germany and in Basel, Switzerland. In North America there are sites at Iselin, NJ; Tarrytown, NY; Wyandotte, MI and Raleigh, NC, and in Asia the main research sites are in Shanghai, China; Mumbai, India; Singapore; and Amagasaki, Japan.

SGI: Why is innovation important to BASF?

BG: As an integrated chemical company, we want to drive forward sustainable solutions in three areas – environment and climate, food and nutrition, and quality of life. The days when a chemical company was simply a supplier of chemicals are long gone and BASF tries to offer system solutions where we combine our deep knowledge of chemistry and technology with our application know-how to deliver sustainable and tailored solutions to promote our customers’ success.

SGI: What is your most important strength when it comes to innovation?

BG: Worldwide, BASF employs over 10,000 people in research, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Supporting this is a global sales and marketing organization with close links to our customers and a manufacturing and technology organization with a capability covering almost the whole range of the chemical industry. By bringing experts from all of these organizations together we can not only find solutions to current needs but also anticipate our customers’ future needs and develop innovative solutions.

SGI: What is BASF’s biggest innovation challenge?

BG: Our world is changing in many different directions – environment and climate, food and nutrition, quality of life – and each of these brings with it its own challenges. BASF sees chemistry as an enabler to find solutions to these challenges, but it cannot work on its own. We need to develop systems approaches that bring together different scientific disciplines to deliver sustainable solutions

SGI: Let’s start with the first.

BG: Environment and climate: Energy and water resources will become increasingly valuable in the future. If our demand for energy does not change, in 2030 we will need about 40% more primary energy. Environment and climate-friendly technologies for energy production are gaining in importance. UN reports state that today 800 million people are already suffering from scarcity of drinking water. Water will become even scarcer as the world population continues to grow. Not only access to water, but also to other non-renewable resources will become more critical.

SGI: What about the second challenge?

BG: Food and nutrition: By 2050, more than nine billion people will be living on planet Earth. A growing world population needs more food. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) estimates that we will need 70% more food in the year 2050. Animal feed production will then have to increase from 2.1 billion tons at present to 3 billion tons and meat production will have to increase from 200 million to 470 million tons. People need not only more but better quality foods to further raise their standard of living.

SGI: What about your last challenge?

BG: Quality of life: People’s expectations vary greatly from region to region and within different social groups, but they all have one thing in common: they all want to improve their individual quality of life. Global changes such as population growth or urbanization are creating new needs and lifestyles.

In all of these areas, chemistry is an essential part of the solution but only a part. The real challenge will be in developing simple ways of applying that chemistry where it is needed – the best solution in the world will not have any effect if it is too complicated or expensive for the end-user.

SGI: What is your favorite new product?

BG: I like products that give a simple solution (at least simple in principle, not always in practice) to a particular problem but then find a much wider use, for example, an encapsulated wax with thermal control properties. When incorporated into textiles the cloth has a thermal regulation effect – when the wearer is too hot, the wax absorbs the heat by melting, then when the environment cools the wax solidifies and gives up the latent heat to warm the wearer. A simple approach but with a rather limited market. However the same approach has now been incorporated into ceiling tiles which give an automatic temperature control. Cooling the room if the temperature rises above about 23C and releasing this heat when the temperature drops. These tiles have now been used in the BRE (Building Research Establishment) Innovation Park in Ravenscraig, Scotland (BASF Ravenscraig).

SGI: What question regarding your presentation do you think most Stage-Gate Summit delegates would like to see answered?

BG: I would hope that delegates will go away with a better understanding of what things they might do that ironically would prevent a Stage-Gate process from working well and the steps they can take to prevent this from happening.