What triggers R&D work in practice?
In general, existing challenges or obstacles lead to new ideas and innovations. We are also continuously looking for ways to improve our products proactively by carefully identifying our customer needs versus our offering and value proposition capabilities.
New ideas can come from any party in our network, internally or externally. Usually the wildest ideas are born in cross-functional teams, which consist of product specialists as well as other functions. We want to make sure that our representatives can be approached quickly and easily in order to implement promising ideas.
R&D is strongly related to business and product strategy as an enabler. Product and development portfolios are constantly being examined with a magnifying glass to identify and fill any gaps and to reach the next level in our offering. We work in close cooperation with our metallic and rubber supply chains and external partners in selected technology fields. Key competence areas are maintained and developed inhouse.
What are the most prominent needs driving the development of mining consumables at the moment?
The customer is the most important influencer when we think about the priority of different development targets: safety, increased uptime, lower maintenance costs and maximized throughput. There may be variation in the objectives depending on the customer’s process and industry. However, the safety aspect is present in all the solutions we provide and is the starting point for all our work.