Digitizing R&D: Reforming the formulation process

 
Mining data from printed or PDF datasheets and playing with formulations in the lab to develop new products are two traditional but tedious component of the R&D process. But what if there were a better way? This paper inquires as to whether there might be a better way forward, to increase efficiency, and thus promote creativity and free up formulators to do what they do best and are paid to do: create new products. Considering a two-step streamlining that would revolutionize the paints and coatings R&D process, we ran experiments on the potential benefits of digital formulation development. First findings of ?research in progress? recommends a cloud-based approach, first to outsourcing data input of datasheets for materials in common repository and then harnessing the digitized data in order to experiment with formulations virtually. By using digitizing as we recommended, we could vastly reduce non-value-added activities from 50 to even 90%.