Chemical Engineering December 2011 - 28

Fractionation Column
Environmental Manager
Lessons I've learned in R&D
n the movie " Jerry Maguire, " Mr.
Cuba Gooding, Jr. said it first -
" Show me the money! " In 1999, Ms.
Jane Li said it to me many times -
" Show me the money! " Ms. Li was my
Six Sigma for R&D instructor when I
worked at UOP. After she said it for
about the tenth time, I finally got it. I
had been working in R&D for almost
25 years. Some of the products and
technologies that I had worked on had
brought profits to my companies. Nevertheless,
the profit motive of R&D
was not yet totally ingrained in me.
My Six Sigma training provided
many lessons. The marketing department
must be involved in R&D projects
- early and often. What good is a
new product if there is no market for
it, or, if there is no significant profit?
Also, the manufacturing and production
department must similarly be
involved. What good is a new product
if the shop cannot produce it at a reasonable
cost? Meanwhile, R&D projects
require regular reevaluations.
R&D managers need to be willing and
able to stop projects at any time. All
R&D projects do not need to be completed.
Conversely, some R&D projects
deserve extra attention and funding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is generally
attributed with saying, " Build a better
mousetrap and the world will beat a
path to your door. " This R&D philosophy
is not as true as R&D engineers
would like to believe. Even the best
mousetraps need to be marketed. It is
never easy to sell new mousetraps. (In
I
fact, when I look back
on the first 12 new
products that I was involved
in, 11 of those
had to be launched outside
the U.S. because
none of our U.S. customers
wanted to be
the guinea pig.)
My long list of personal
experiences has
taught me some other
things. Expect the unexpected
- and enjoy
it. Surprising laboratory
results often provide
great starting
points for further study.
Some, but not all, " bad
ideas " are worth further evaluation.
What, indeed, might happen if a developing
product was installed upside
down or if a test program was run in
reverse. What might be learned? You
would sometimes be surprised.
Every R&D project requires a plan -
a plan that begins with inception and
funding and ends with selling and startup.
That plan, however, should consider
that many experiments need to be done
wrong the first time. Some experiments
begin with an inadequate vocabulary,
or a data collection sheet that does not
have enough variables listed. As Albert
Einstein said, " If we knew what it was
we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it? "
R&D directors are encouraged to provide
their managers with discretionary
Mike Resetarits is the technical director at Fractionation
Research, Inc. (FRI; Stillwater, Okla.; www.fri.org), a distillation
research consortium. Each month, Mike shares his
first-hand experience with CE readers
funds, maybe 15% of the total R&D
budget. R&D engineers are inspired
by the freedoms that such funding provides,
and by the faith that their directors
are exhibiting. Expect 115% efforts
regarding discretionary projects.
R&D engineers are encouraged to
perform design, manufacturing and
selling work when such opportunities
arise. R&D engineers should not
spend too much time riveted to their
computers, while the real work is
being performed by technicians in the
laboratory in another building.
Finally, but most importantly, frontiers
can be unsafe places. If you are
an R&D worker, and if safety is not
your number-one priority, know that it
someday will be - and must be. ■
Mike Resetarits
Unabhängigkeit = Ressourcen x Innovation
seit 1829 unter Strom
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Chemical Engineering December 2011

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