Digitalizing the Paints and Coatings Development Process

Abstract

Numerous laboratory tests are used to determine the appropriateness of new formulations in the development process in the paint and coatings industry. New formulations are most often functionally inadequate, unacceptable for environmental or health reasons, or too expensive. Formulators are obliged to repeat laboratory tests until one of the formulations fulfills the minimum requirements. This is cumbersome, slow, and expensive, and can cause ecological problems, wasting materials on tests that do not produce the desired results. The purpose of this research was to find out if there might be a better way forward to increase efficiency and free up formulators to focus on new products. In this experiment, a new paints and coatings development process was redesigned based on the potential benefits of formulation digitalization. Instead of laboratory testing, a digital platform was used that has been developed and stocked with relevant, up-to-date, and complete, usable data. This study found that, by going digital, developers could vastly reduce non-value-added activities in the development process (by as much as 70%) and significantly shorten the entire process throughput time (by up to 48%). Using digital tools to facilitate the development process appears to be a possible way forward for the paint and coatings industry, saving time, materials, and money and protecting the environment.

39th International Conference on Organizational Science Development

“…Obstaja več razlogov za neučinkovitost organizacij in poslovnih procesov (Kern et al, 2019). Ti so lahko notranji ali zunanji.…”

Digital Transformation Reduces Costs of the Paints and Coatings Development Process

“…The ARIS tool was used to prepare these models. The process modeling methodology is described in detail in Kern et al [3]. In this article, as a continuation of previous research [3], we focused on the cost aspect of improving business processes as a result of digital technology implementation.…”

“…Manufacturers in the paints and coatings industry are facing increasing customers' demands for paints and coatings that ensure adequate protection of the substrate, meet the relevant aesthetic criteria, and consider environmental protection and health safety requirements [1,2]. Time "from demand to product" has to be as short as possible [3,4]. At the same time, manufacturers have to have costs of a product in mind.…”

“…In the article "Digitalizing the Paints and Coatings Development Process" [3] has been proved that the inclusion of the appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) support in the new product development process helped to reduce the entire development process throughput time significantly. However, the purpose of the present research was to determine whether reducing the number of laboratory tests, based on the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT), affects reducing costs in the paints and coatings development process.…”

“…The formulator uses ingredients data from the structured database, which is available in the digital form in a cloud. The re-engineering point is that the formulator has instant and free access to a large number of ingredients and is guided by the platform to select only those that are functionally relevant, safe, environmentally acceptable, and affordable, even before the individual formulation is laboratory-tested [3]. Therefore, we can extract three main properties of the technical enabler from the perspective of the current research:…”