New Project House Systems Integration at Evonik Industries

• Custom-designed solutions for customer processes throughout all stages of the value-added chain
• Technology packages pave the way for innovative products

As one of the worldwide leading specialty chemicals suppliers, Evonik Industries is aligning itself more broadly to the individual needs of customers. And this is exactly the purpose of the Group’s new competence center, the Project House Systems Integration in Hanau-Wolfgang, as has been highlighted by Patrik Wohlhauser, chairman of the Board of Management of Evonik Degussa GmbH. "Our customers continuously optimize their own production processes. Evonik develops solutions at all stages in the value-added chain to help them do this - because our solutions help them reach their goal better, faster, and more cost efficiently," says Wohlhauser.

The basic idea of the Project House Systems Integration goes above and beyond previous approaches: "Especially in specialty chemicals, you can’t just throw the customer an innovative product over the works fence and hope for immediate success. To have an edge on the competition, you must also be able to say how such an innovation can be integrated into the customer’s plants, processes and line production. More and more, the demand is for technology packages," explains Dr. Michael Olbrich, head of the new project house. "Our holistic approach is designed to accelerate the development process, add more competencies along the value-added chain, and facilitate the market launch of new products," he stresses.

The Project House Systems Integration has about fifteen employees and has launched half a dozen projects since the beginning of the year. The close cooperation of experts from completely different units of the company is designed to swiftly pave the way from science and research to industry and market. The projects cover a variety of topics, including adhesives "bonding on demand" that selectively develop their adhesive effect at the push of a button. Other good examples are automotive glazing made of plastic, with and without function integration, solar components, and nanofibers for filtration applications.
Olbrich: "We want to achieve solutions that can be precisely integrated into the customer's processes - solutions that give the customer a special advantage, that supply true added value." In addition to encompassing the technology, the holistic approach of the project house also includes the development of marketing concepts.

Wohlhauser is convinced that features such as efficiency, marketing opportunities and added benefit are more important today than ever: "The current challenges for the global economy only confirm that our approach is the right one."

The Project House Systems Integration will run for the normal three-year period, during which experts from the participating Evonik business units will work together on cross-unit topics. The project house is managed by Creavis Technologies & Innovation, the strategic R&D unit of Evonik.