Case Study: Welding and Fabrication
Product/service area: Welding and Fabrication
Sales turnover: >£1 billion/year
The role of the research and development department of a major supplier of welding and fabrication products had been broadened to include research into a variety of possible new areas of application for the company's products. As a result, there was a very wide range of possible applications to which the department could devote its resources, so Ditton was commissioned to investigate the various interfaces between pure research, current commercial R&D, and processes that were already in commercial use, in order to identify the best opportunities to pursue.
The study included telephone and field interviews with universities, research institutes, other departments within the client company, and potential customers in the market. As a result of these detailed interviews, it was possible to categorise the potential areas of R&D expenditure in such a way that the client could subsequently rank them in order of priority, from those requiring immediate attention, through to areas where only a watching brief was needed. This enabled the client to use its resources more effectively, increasing the likelihood that innovative products would be launched ahead of the competition.