Interview with Dr. Jürgen Omeis, CTO and Head of R&D at BYK

 

BYK has set clear goals for itself: Three years from now, products that have existed for less than five years are supposed to generate 15% of sales. How are you going to achieve this goal?

We know this is an ambitious goal. But I have no doubt that we are going to achieve it because we have the best conditions at BYK. As a company, we are committed, pragmatic and solutions-oriented – and our customers appreciate this. We always look forward.
Being receptive to new ideas is the key here. Our interactions are characterized by respect for each other. This means that we listen to each other – and to our customers. Listening is a first and a very important step. Second – and equally important – we carefully review all recommendations that are presented before we make decisions about whether they have a future or not. Once we know that an idea has a future, we focus on implementation and get to work.

Please give us an example.

About ten years ago, we made a strategically important decision to enter the field of Controlled Polymerization Technology, CPT, which, at the time, was not yet very well researched and completely unknown to us. We knew that this technology had enormous potential, but that it also represented a risk. Looking back, we now see this decision as a milestone in the very successful history of innovation at BYK. Why? Because we achieved an edge in know-how over our competition. And today all of our CPT-based products are exceptionally successful. Innovations need resources.

What is the situation at BYK with respect to resources?

We invest approximately 8% of sales in research and development. This is well above the average for a company of our size in our industry. Please bear in mind that the average chemical company in Germany typically invests no more than 2-3% of sales in research and development. Most of the companies that invest at the level that we do are large operations with more than 10,000 employees. 20% of the workforce at BYK is involved in innovation. The R&D department here at the Wesel site alone employs nearly 200 people. About one fifth of them are chemists who specialize in an extremely wide range of fields, including organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and analytical chemistry. One third of them are chemical engineers and another third are chemical technicians. So we are well covered from a personnel standpoint because we have in-house specialists for the technologies and processes that are important to us.

In your opinion, what is an innovation?

Our understanding is clear: Innovation is what succeeds in the markets and generates growth for BYK. That means for us: We have to carry our innovations to the markets and convince the customers and the users. Based on these premises, different directions and strategies can be pursued. Of course, the development of completely new products and groundbreaking solutions remains our main focus. And BYK has a number of successes of that kind to its credit.

Could you please give us some examples of innovative product developments from the past several years?

Our newest product innovation is BYK®-3550. This new additive is a silicone macromer-modified polyacrylate that integrates both acrylate and silicone properties in a single additive. Based on macromer technology, this additive provides unique product profiles through properties that can be achieved only through innovative chemistry. It’s no wonder that this product earned the “BYK Advance” innovation award.

But BYK was also the first additives producer to successfully apply the new Controlled Polymerization Technology process. Our wetting and dispersing additives DISPERBYK®-2000 and DISPERBYK®-2001 were the first products based on this technology. Other examples include our NANOBYK® products, which provide outstanding scratch-resistance and UV-protection against ageing, the surface additive BYK®-SILCLEAN 3700, and our adhesion promoters BYK®-4500 and BYK®-4510. All are groundbreaking developments from the last few years. And we have also used these innovations to lay the basic groundwork for the further advancement of technologies and product families. I believe nanotechnology holds particularly promising potential – in combination with our surface additives for use in the development of more eco-friendly aqueous and UV coatings, for example.

Does your concept of innovation also include the development of new markets?

Of course! We do not exclusively pursue niche strategies despite the fact that we have successfully occupied a number of niches. We identify markets with strong growth potential and plan our market entrance carefully. Different approaches are possible here. Take the paper industry, for example: We are quite successful in this market with some additives now, for instance BYK® 3400.
We started with this thought: As a manufacturer of coating additives, our core competency is to affect surfaces in specific ways – and that know-how is exactly what you need to have if you want to coat raw paper for further processing. Our additive BYK® 3400, which was especially developed for paper finishing, is an outstanding example of this approach.
Apart from that, we found that a number of our additives needed only small modifications to make them suitable for use in paper finishing applications.
We view this relatively recent commitment to the paper market as an important success story and that’s why we will also continue to build on it.