Developing innovative products in technical fields requires labs that excel in creative science. These research and development (R&D) labs operate very differently from labs focused on proficiency, like quality control or standard testing labs. The key framework of the creative lab needs to be built around ideation, experimentation, and rapid learning. To learn more about how innovative companies structure these creative R&D labs, we talked with Mickael Havel (MH), North America battery sales and market manager, and Woldemar d’Ambrières, global market manager for battery from Arkema, a company known for their innovative specialty chemistry products.
Q: R&D scientists can be very creative and inventive. How do you suggest that innovative companies provide guidance to R&D labs?
Mickael Havel
MH: We want to develop tailor-made materials for our customers and make this process effective and scalable. It is very important to have a whole relationship with our customers, including business, supply chain, and technical. We take R&D people with us to customers because they speak a certain language, and we invite our customers and partners to come to our labs and work with us to develop solutions together. It's important to be in phase, to understand, and be understood. We don't want to have an R&D lab that is isolated from the reality of the market. We want to put them in the front seat, so that they can hear first-hand what the customer sees, what they want to improve, the performance they want, and the product features that they need. Based on that, we go back to the lab and work on specific customer-focused problems.
Q: From your positions as suppliers, what advice would you give to lab managers about how they can work with their suppliers to make sure that they're getting the quality product that they need?
MH: Conduct vendor audits. We have audits from our customers, most often at the plants. They provide feedback constantly. We listen to each customer, and we implement the changes that they request. This is probably the most effective continuous improvement process that we have.
WdA: We are making continuous improvements. We work with external parties to help us improve, and the audits are a part of this. We also are in continuous discussion with our customers about their quality requirements, because those requirements are also evolving. We need to continuously invest in these labs to have new equipment, new technology, to go further. The quality requirements are a differentiating factor for us. The better our quality, the better we can compete.
Q: What advice do you have for lab managers who are trying to develop something truly innovative?
MH: Follow a stage gate process. First, validate the need from the market and potential return on this investment. Then evaluate the technical feasibility. Can we make it? Are there any barriers, like IP? Can we make it at scale? Are there concerns about the materials? Can they be sourced? There's all kinds of considerations. So, what is critical, and this is the beauty of the stage gate process, is that you put together in a room a variety of critical functions, like business, R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance. It's an iterative process progressing through the stages until the last stage, which is post-commercialization. This can take a few weeks, or it can take a few years. My advice is to absolutely follow the stage gate process, which is a very robust, proven process.
Woldemar d'Ambrières
WdA: Absolutely agree and I think I would also advise to ensure the iteration loops are very dynamic. Mickael mentioned it's a dynamic process. So, internally and externally with the customer or customers we’re developing the solution for. We need to make sure that the iterations between us and the customers are done in a timely manner.
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Q: What ideas do you have to stimulate long-term innovations?
MH: We have our incubator. It is almost an internal startup. We give those projects more leeway than projects in an individual business unit. They work around an adapted and modified stage gate process. We understand it's not going to be returning profits immediately, but we believe that strategically, it makes sense. We continue this investment, nurture the project, and we put the developed technology on the market for a few years and see what happens. You need innovation to innovate; meaning that it's a learning process. You can develop a toolbox of things that may not be useful right away. But you put them on a shelf and then five or 10 years later, it turns into something else. This is more of a long game.
Q: How is the incubator organized?
MH: The incubator is a corporate research function. The businesses can invest in the incubator, so they can pool resources. It's a corporate umbrella rather than a single business unit. Multiple business units can invest if they believe in the project. Typically, an incubator project has a project manager who oversees its finances. It could have a full headcount or a partial headcount. You must remain flexible and fluid.
Q: As a project graduates from the incubator, does it take its people with it? Or do the incubator people stay in the incubator and receive the next set of corporate investment projects?
MH: Typically, the people that are experts follow the projects. At some point, the project is moved into a business unit. From a researcher’s perspective, there are paths where individuals may be in a traditional business unit developing products but can cycle through an incubator and follow a new product, creating career flexibility. People don't find themselves locked into some tiny silo.
Mickael Havel is the North America battery sales & market manager at Arkema’s High Performance Polymers division. He oversees the development of Kynar® PVDF, a fluoropolymer used as a binder in electrode manufacturing, and as a coating on battery separators. He obtained his PhD in physics and chemistry from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris, France. He joined Arkema in 2007 where he held multiple positions in R&D and new business development.
Woldemar d'Ambrières is the global market manager for battery at Arkema. He oversees the company’s business related to solutions for both inside and outside the battery cell. He holds degrees from The London School of Economics and Political Science in London and École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France. He joined Arkema in March 2024 in his current role and has previously worked for material science companies in France, UK, and South Korea.
