MAKING AND FINDING SOLUTIONS
be important in LED, it’s important in lots of things we do.” So we built a core competency in understanding how to put additives in the Plexiglas to allow us to manipulate or manage its interaction with light, whether it’s reflection or trans- mission or diffusion. We’ve developed a whole family of products now that help in the diffusion of LED light—the extrac- tion of light from LED fixtures while hiding the fact points of light.
that they’re sharp pin-
You now see LEDs in taillights of automobiles, in your houses—they’re everywhere, and it’s a high-growth mar- ket. So the platform was optics around manipulation of light in Plexiglas. And we find that spawns a lot of products addressing customer opportunities and challenges in the lighting industry, the display industry, the taillight industry and some other industries that would take me a lot more words to describe to you.
Army AL&T: Was there ever something that someone else developed which, after
seeing it, you thought you should have been there first?
Dirkx: Yes, of course. We try to be first in areas that are of strategic interest to us but can’t employ the huge resources needed to lead in every area. You have to pick your spots.
Army AL&T: A lot of people, when they hear the word “chemical,” tend to think of things that are exotic or poisonous. As a chemist, do you tend to look at every- thing around you as chemical in nature?
I’ve been in this new product development business for a number of years now, so I consider myself a student. I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve learned a lot over the years, too. So I tried, first, to paint the picture of why industry, particularly the chemical industry, is so resistant to change.
Dirkx: Yes, I do. But think of me more as a materials guy, too. I think about it at the atomistic level, I think about it at the materials level. So it’s cellulosic or it’s metallic, or it’s conductive or noncon- ductive, or it’s porous or it’s solid, or it’s thermally conductive or it’s thermally insulating. But absolutely I do. In fact, I tell my wife that’s why I like to cook. Tere are a lot of analogies in the materi- als world when you make stuff by mixing things together. You have something called solid state diffusion, that’s the mixing of flavors, and it’s time and tem- perature that drives mixing like that. Yes, unfortunately, I do think that way. Tink about making your bacon and eggs in the morning. Don’t you get a little different result if you’re using a stainless steel pan rather than a nonstick pan?
Army AL&T: Do you ever experience what we term “requirements creep,” in which something with minimal requirements suddenly has to do and be everything, and so it ends up burdened with expectations?
Dirkx: I’m not sure that we do experience it in the manner you are suggesting. We are often working toward performance specifications or targets rather than “requirements.” Tese often do “creep”
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on us, to use your terminology. It’s a competitive world out there, and our competitors are not sitting still!
Army AL&T: Your website has a teaser that talks about “high pressure, low budgets and a short project timeline” in working with a partner company. Tis is exemplary of what the Army would like to achieve all the time. When you decide to work with a partner, does it make any difference if the partner is a large or small business?
Dirkx: In my opinion, size is not always as important as other things. For exam- ple, finding someone who has assets or knowledge complementary to what we have can be more important for project success and acceleration. We also try to pick partners that have some history of working well with others and understand the concept of sharing the value that is created by working together.
Army AL&T: When you find a new application for an existing product that’s outside of Arkema’s regular business lines, what steps do you take next? Would you consider starting a whole new busi- ness line if you felt you could address that need more effectively than the competi- tion? If so, what does that process entail?
Dirkx: In this case, if the opportunity is large enough, it will be prioritized as a project and assigned resources. If it is a really new application, then a part- ner or collaborator is likely going to be needed and a joint-development agree- ment approach would be considered. However, we could decide to develop our own in-house lab capability if we think it has additional leverage. For something that is really new, requiring a longer-term development period, not a direct fit with an existing business, and offering sig- nificant growth, we do have a centralized
Army AL&T Magazine
July-September 2015
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