From Lab to Market: Commercialising a New Coatings Technology

Introduction — A Good Formulation Is Only the Beginning

Taking a coatings product from initial concept to a final formulation can take anywhere from a few weeks to several years, depending on the complexity of the technology and whether it is an evolution of an existing product. But developing the formulation is only the first milestone in bringing a successful product to market.

In addition to the fundamental question of whether the formulation works for its intended purpose, questions to be answered concern the ability to successfully produce in commercial quantities, the economics and importantly Will customers purchase the product?

Start With the Problem, Not the Technology

Scientifically driven organisations often fall into the trap of developing technically superb technologies but then needing to shoehorn this technology into an application it was not really developed for. This is the wrong way around! For any product to be successful it must solve a problem that a customer is currently experiencing or, as was the case with the development of the original iPod (who knew we needed 1000 songs in our pocket?), we didn’t even know it was an issue!

A customer having an issue should provide the motivation for making their life easier whether that be from a coating that enables them to run their production process faster, more efficiently, enable them to comply with a change in regulation or provide a technically superior product to their end user. A coating product that enables all these characteristics should be a differentiator in the market and will only be of commercial value when the customer values it.

Proving the Science

By approaching the development in a different way, using techniques such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD)^[3], the question asked of a coatings business becomes one of “how will the customer actually use this product and therefore what performance characteristics will the product need to have?” rather than which industry standard tests does it need to pass? A classical example of this is the wedge bend test; but in reality how many coatings in real service life are subjected to a deformation that varies in circumference depending upon position after being subjected to an impact from a weight - not many I suppose! However these tests, even though difficult to replicate, are used to assess performance of coatings and make decisions as to if a specification is met.

Reliable and reproducible testing of formulations under conditions that closely replicate those being used by the customer to apply and cure the coating is vital to ensure that the properties observed at the laboratory scale can be replicated when the customer comes to use the system (more on coatings as system rather than just formulations in a later article) so the use of techniques such as Gage Repeatability & Reproducibility (Gage R&R)^[1] evaluation to assess how robust a test method is across variations of operator and equipment used becomes a very important tool in the development of coating systems. Whether you’re assessing the adhesion to the substrate, chemical, corrosion/weathering resistance or the range across which the formulation will perform it’s vital that the measurements you use can be relied upon.

Coating system robustness studies in terms of formulation variation expected during production, raw material specification as well as the limits to which the addition level of components can be reduced (or indeed increased) before the performance is affected can be studied using statistical experimental design, this also has major use potential for evaluating the robustness of the formulation to any variation in the cure conditions.

The Scale-Up Gap

The scale up of formulations into production is a key stage in the development of coatings technology, also one aspect that should not be underestimated. A good Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) ^[2] at the point in the development will enable the development project team to highlight any potential issues of scale up and their mitigation.

Simply scaling up quantities of components does not cover the complexity of this stage of a development. A dedicated chemical engineering resource embedded within the development team will provide the insight into optimum design of reactor, blending tanks, stirrers, position of baffles etc. etc. for the best and most efficient way of producing the new formulation in a consistent manner. Scale up of what seems like a relatively simple formulation from a 1 Kg scale in a laboratory to 5000 Kg in production brings changes in mixing and shearing rates, issues about the ability to either introduce or remove heat from the process, adding raw materials to reactors or blending tanks moves from a simple addition funnel on a glass reactor in the laboratory to an issue of how to physically get the raw materials to the reactor and how to add it to the mixing vessel in a safe and efficient way with minimal residuals left.

The order in which components are added can in some cases have a significant impact upon the formulation stability (especially for water dispersible systems) and once again this should be considered during the development of any formulation, indeed previously I led teams who successfully studied these aspects using Design of Experiments (DoE)^[4] techniques to excellent effect. It goes without saying that some issues cannot be foreseen, for example, whilst scaling up an acrylic latex formulation, I encountered a slight change in surfactant quality when moving from laboratory scale to pilot plant scale on a different continent (same product just supplied in drum quantities rather than glass bottles for the lab). This slight change was responsible for changing dispersion quality, particle size distribution and stability, all issues that were overcome but showed the value of a robust scale up step during the development process and demonstrating that developing an understanding of the manufacturing process is part of the development process and not something that just happens after it.

Understanding the Economics

The economics of a new product formulation should have been appreciated at the onset of any development programme. A structured approach to the whole cycle will have enabled, at least an indicative selling price and acceptable gross margin achievable, to have been established well before a product reaches any stage close to commercialization. It is critical that for a product to be commercially viable then the true costs must be established.

The actual cost of a product includes:

• Raw materials
• Manufacturing
• Packaging
• Logistics
• Quality control
• Any waste disposal
• Technical/Sales/Customer service support

It should be noted that the very best technical solution in terms of performance may not be necessarily the optimal formulation in commercial reality and for development teams whose role it is to deliver a product that completely meets the specification this can become a source of friction between technical and commercial branches of any organisation. Once again, only by clearly defining expectations early in the development process can this conflict be potentially avoided.

Regulation, Sustainability and Supply Chain

In the ever developing world of regulations and increased drive for more sustainable products, the product specification to be developed should cover at least the following:

• Chemical regulation
• VOC requirements
• Restricted substances
• Environmental claims
• Raw-material availability
• Single-source ingredients
• Geographic supply
• Future regulatory risk

I often joked that the best thing that could be invented for use in a development programme would be a time-machine as this would enable not only insight into the physical, mechanical and chemical performance of a coating system over time but also would enable insight into the ever changing regulatory and sustainability landscape. Although difficult, a forward looking view, taking into account for example raw material suppliers’ plans (a raw material that is single sourced or produced in a production facility scheduled to be closed within the next year) is not helpful if you have developed a product that is expected to have a lifecycle of 10 years!

Talking to regulatory experts and people within the general supply chain (sometimes under the auspices of non-disclosure agreements to protect your intellectual property) should help to identify and potentially mitigate any issues you could encounter in the future.

Getting Customers Involved Early

The importance of involving customers early in any development process is critical. Depending on the potential market reach of the new product it might be beneficial to consider a “development partner” approach, a customer who is identified as an early adopter of new technologies and is willing to assess the product for its suitability in their own production facility, obviously this customer must be willing to absorb some of the costs involved themselves but they would potentially get access to the new technology earlier than the general market and subject to competition regulations could get preferential purchasing deals for a period of time after the product has been launched.

Using a development partner approach in product development also gives the major advantage that the customer will provide information about what matters to them and can expose problems that laboratory tests could miss; application equipment, sample preparation, operator behaviour, environmental conditions (for example does the formulation apply in the same manner in a high humidity environment compared to a dry and hot facility?) as well as feedback concerning the ability of product to be applied for extended periods of time — only these types of assessment can be gathered at a customer application.

Conclusion — Success Happens at the Intersection

A successful coating technology needs four things to occur simultaneously, this is not an easy equation to satisfy and if any one of the multipliers is close to, or even zero, the commercial imperative for developing a new product or technology collapses:

Commercial Potential = Technical Performance × Manufacturability × Commercial Viability × Customer Value

Bringing a new coatings technology to market requires decisions across science, engineering and commercial strategy. The organisations that manage these disciplines together — rather than sequentially — are better positioned to turn promising research into valuable products.

Developing or scaling a new coatings technology? Verdean works with science-led organisations to bridge the gap between technical development and commercial application.

With the launch of Verdean Consultancy, our aim is to bring this experience to science-led organisations developing new technologies and products. Having worked across technical development, scale-up, manufacturing and commercialisation, we understand that moving from a promising idea to a successful product rarely depends on the science alone. Verdean has been established to help businesses navigate these challenges, providing practical technical and commercial support from early-stage development through to market introduction and beyond.

We are looking forward to working with organisations across the coatings and wider science sectors, helping turn good science into robust, scalable and commercially successful products.