MOSCOW (MRC) -- The innovation-driven world of chemical and technology companies is characterized by a constant process of change, as per the company's press release.
To maintain its successful track record in this environment, BASF is further speeding up and focusing its research and development activities, said Dr. Martin Brudermuller, Vice Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer of BASF, at the Research Press Conference held today in Ludwigshafen. Even though BASF’s research is already very successful with an output of about €10 billion sales from innovative products, the company needs to adapt its established approaches to changing conditions, said Brudermuller.
"Our R&D success factors are creativity, efficiency and integration. Fostering creativity and creating the conditions necessary to achieve it are among the company’s most important tasks," he added. Creative and efficient work is also supported by integration, Brudermuller explained. "To do this, we need to intelligently combine the competencies of our global Research and Development Verbund while also taking advantage of our external networks." Every R&D employee needs to demonstrate focus and discipline combined with flexibility and openness. "We gain speed by constantly challenging ourselves to flexibly react to changes and to tackle the right topics in a focused way," Brudermuller said.
Innovations based on chemistry require market-oriented research and development that focuses strongly on the needs of customers. In 2015, BASF’s research pipeline encompassed around 3,000 projects and spending on research and development rose to EUR1,953 million (2014: EUR1,884 million). The operating divisions were responsible for 79 percent of these R&D expenditures. The remaining 21 percent was allocated to cross-divisional corporate research focusing on long-term topics of strategic importance to the BASF Group. In order to bring promising ideas to market even faster, BASF regularly assesses its research projects using a multistep process and focuses its topics accordingly.
The foundation of BASF’s innovation strength is its global team of highly qualified employees from various disciplines: In 2015, around 10,000 employees were working in Research and Development worldwide. The central research areas Process Research & Chemical Engineering, Advanced Materials & Systems Research and Bioscience Research serve as BASF’s three global research platforms, headquartered in the company’s main regions – Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Together with the development units of the divisions, they form the core of BASF’s Know-How Verbund. With around 4,900 employees working in Research and Development, Ludwigshafen (including Limburgerhof) remains the largest site in BASF’s Research Verbund. This was reinforced by the investment in a new research building which creates modern workspaces and ideal cooperation conditions for around 200 employees in the platform Advanced Materials & Systems Research.
As MRC wrote before, in April 2016, BASF celebrated the inauguration of its new PU flooring facilities for the production of Ucrete in Bukit Raja, Klang/Malaysia. It is the first manufacturing hub in Asia Pacific to produce all components of Ucrete.
BASF is the largest diversified chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of more than EUR70 billion in 2015.
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