From visions to products and solutions

Best Ideas

"But innovations only stimulate growth if they are linked to ideas, technologies and market expertise, and then rapidly transformed into competitive solutions," says Manfred Rink, head of New Business at Bayer MaterialScience. The company has therefore established a set of instruments for systematically identifying and assessing technology and market trends. Together with customers, research institutions and universities, the experts in New Business analyze the latest developments and trends in polymer technology.
Elaborating future scenarios, which describe the world 15 years from now, helps to generate ideas for potential products and their characteristics. In the process, Bayer MaterialScience relies not only on its own know-how, but also on that of competent partners, and for this reason co-founded the "Future Living 2020" network project together with 13 participants from industry and the university community. The scenarios help to identify future consumer needs and new market trends as early as possible, and to respond with market-ready products and applications at precisely the right time.
During product development, the experts at Bayer MaterialScience collaborate closely with potential customers. One of the latest examples is the "purSonic®" sound system, developed by polyurethane specialist Puren GmbH in cooperation with Siemens AG and Bayer MaterialScience. It generates sound not through loudspeakers, but with a vibrating surface based on a new technology engineered by Siemens. A thin soundboard made of a specially formulated polyurethane from Bayer MaterialScience, which can be installed in a wall, ceiling or floor, produces brilliant, digitally controlled sound.
Products from Bayer MaterialScience are used in applications ranging from surgical microscopes made by Leica Microsystems, FlatTV™ plasma televisions from Philips, and bicycle saddles designed by the famous Italian supplier Selle Royal S.p.A. to scratch-resistant coating raw materials with nano-scale structures and forgery-proof data carriers made of Makrofol® ID polycarbonate film. All these developments begin with an idea full of potential. For Bayer MaterialScience and its customers, Best Ideas are the key to a successful future.

Best Practices

At the same time, Bayer MaterialScience and its customers in a variety of industries have access to an existing portfolio of proven products, applications and technologies. Bayer MaterialScience is known for its extensive experience and sophisticated technologies. Best Practices guarantee the superior quality of Bayer MaterialScience products.
On the other hand, new fields of application frequently emerge for established products. Makrolon®, for instance, which was discovered over 50 years ago, still hasn't lost any momentum and is today used as roofing for arenas like the Olympic Stadium in Athens, in the manufacture of optical data carriers such as CDs and DVDs, and in automotive glazing like the side rear windows of various “smart” models, and the panorama roof of the “smart” forfour. The experts at BMS likewise work closely with customers to develop new applications for established products.
One visible result of such successful cooperation with partners in the automotive supplier industry is the unmistakable radiator grille of the new Audi A6 and A8 models. To create "the new face of Audi," specialists at Bayer MaterialScience created a custom material. The coated radiator grille itself is manufactured by Gerhardi Kunststofftechnik GmbH in Lüdenscheid, Germany. The supplier and developer of the overall bumper system, including the radiator grille, is Dynamit Nobel Kunststoff GmbH in Weissenburg. "Thanks to close cooperation between the experts at Bayer MaterialScience, Gerhardi, Dynamit Nobel and Audi, it took us only two months to devise a solution that met all of Audi's demands," recalls Lutz Greitemann, head of Key Accounts at Gerhardi.

Best Services

In addition to Best Ideas and Best Practices, Bayer MaterialScience promises its customers Best Services all over the world. The expertise of company specialists is available through Regional Service Centers, systems houses, competence centers and laboratories. For example, customers can optimize production of their data carriers at special CD and DVD labs.
The Thermoplastics Testing Center in Krefeld-Uerdingen offers some 200 different tests for thermoplastic materials, as well as pellet and test specimen manufacturing. These services benefit compounders, extruders, injection molders, raw material manufacturers and suppliers around the world.
Bayer MaterialScience opened a new Competence Center for Polycarbonate Films in early June 2004 at its Leverkusen site. Norbert Kinzel, head of Marketing, explains: "The new Competence Center provides all the equipment required for the various steps involved in film processing."
At the Color Competence Centers in Filago (Italy), Newark (Ohio, USA) and Map Ta Phut (Thailand), specialists from Bayer MaterialScience assist customers with any and all questions relating to colors and special effects on plastic surfaces.

With its combination of Best Ideas, Best Practices and Best Services, Bayer MaterialScience wants to collaborate with its customers to make visions a reality. Numerous examples document the success of this approach. With VisionWorks, Bayer MaterialScience also complements Bayer AG's new image statement: Bayer – an inventor company.

Leverkusen, 2005-03-18