In many ways, the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet plane serves as an object lesson about the hazards of globalization of new product codevelopment and manufacturing. Over many years, Boeing had built its own aircraft design facilities, aircraft manufacturing plants and suppliers in Everett, Washington, near Seattle. That changed with the Dreamliner.

There are several forces driving globalization of R&D. The first is to better target the R&D needs and markets of other nations. A second is to spread the costs of large projects between two partners or more to reduce the risks and costs incurred by each partner. A third is to promote the sale of the R&D results to the countries in which the R&D took place.

“Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana,” commented Microsoft’s Bill Gates. So why should laboratory managers worry about keeping intellectual property confidential? Gates’ statement may be true for computers and information technology. However, in many other business areas, intellectual property can have a much longer shelf life and needs to remain confidential for many years.

Excerpt taken from John K. Borchardt’s article, Proper Disposal or Reuse of Old Laboratory Chemicals, Lab Manager Magazine May 2011 issue. Having periodic cleanup days during which old chemical samples and unused/nonfunctional equipment is

Staff reductions can result in severe challenges to proper chemical waste disposal management. In some recent cases, entire large facilities have been closed.