Innovation is a key driver of Bekaert’s technological leadership. Within Bekaert, innovation is put into practice along two main axes: product innovation and process innovation. Product innovation helps us better serve current and new customers. Process innovation enables us to increase our operational excellence while minimizing the impact on the environment.
Our innovation approach aims to create added value for our customers, expanding our horizons through international cooperation and offering reliable solutions based on proprietary equipment.
We team up with customers and suppliers around the globe to develop, implement, upgrade and protect both current and future technologies. Listening closely to our customers and understanding how our products function within their production lines and products is key to developing fit-for-use solutions.
Our global technology platform consists of two main Technology Centers in Deerlijk (Belgium) and Jiangyin (Jiangsu province, China). Business and customer-specific projects are further supported by various development labs and innovation teams around the world.
R&D is key for Bekaert as it offers our customers the most innovative solutions.
Open innovation on a global scale
We seek international partners for cooperation with universities and research institutes. Bekaert continues to cooperate with academic institutes, technology clusters,
as well as research partners from different countries in order to bring an outside-in approach.
- Bekaert is active in the Strategic Initiative Materials (SIM) program and shall continue to do so. We have a research partnership with the Universitiy of Leuven (Belgium), the metal research activities cluster in Ghent (Belgium) and the ‘Université de Lille’ (France). Bekaert is an active member of the Flanders Mechatronic Center and collaborates with the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI) in Eindhoven (The Netherlands).
- In China, we have a partnership with the Institute of Metal Research (IMR) in Shenyang (Liaoning province) and with Tsinghua University in Beijing.
- In Slovakia, we have a research contract with the University of Trnava.
- In the US, collaborative research efforts continue to be carried out at the Colorado School of Mines.
For Bekaert, open innovation goes beyond cooperation with universities & research institutes. To remain a technology leader, we listen carefully to and cooperate closely with our customers. Moreover, there is an increasing trend in co-development projects with our strategic suppliers. We also consider corporate venturing by investing in companies and venture capital funds worldwide. Our related investments are minority interests in young start-up companies with innovative technologies that can support the sustainable profitable growth strategy of Bekaert.
Innovation in a nutshell
- In 2012 we invested € 69 million in R&D.
- An international team of 400 R&D specialists works on customer-driven research projects.
- We acknowledge the importance of innovation: 50 first patent applications were filed in the course of 2012, a record number for Bekaert. IP protection applies mainly to products and brands, but also to processes and equipment.
Bekaert’s in-house engineering department designs, assembles, installs and maintains the equipment for our various plants worldwide. Our engineering activities span the complete cycle from machine concept to automated production line, and close the loop by improving machine design based on production data. Production efficiency is supported by global spare parts asset management. Our engineering department has teams at different facilities in Belgium, China, Slovakia, India and Brazil.