Research and Technology (R&T) is an applied branch of Research & Development (R&D) to industrial pratices. Less fundamental in scope, R&T faces company challenges head-on.
The MMB R&T team focuses on “unlocking technology barriers” in manufacturing according to the R&T director, i.e., to move from the existing toward acquiring new competencies through three kinds of innovation :
- Incremental innovation : the continuous improvement of processes as measured by result metrics such as precision, surface finish quality, reliability, transparency, etc.
- Breakthrough innovation : the overcoming of technology barriers such that new applications of production processes are found, e.g., on a transformation technology-material combination, a stark objective metrics increase or a steep production cost decrease,
- Environmental innovation : the replacing of raw materials of chemical agents by products which are more respectful of the worker’s environment, the consumer and the planet at large. These innovations are constant and stem from MMB’s proactive social and environmental responsability rules and objectives, or from new regulations such as the European REACH laws.
R&T is motivated by markets signs (in the form of marketing or Customer demands directly), production gridlocks (at the initiative of QSE or production), or new regulation requirements. The support role of R&T is therefore to answer to such identified questions with short-to-middle-term bounded research projects. Constant technology watch as well as partnerships seeking are part of the answer.
