AkzoNobel’s Ps & Qs and R&D

Always avoid alliteration, goes the well-known saying about writing. But alliteration is an excellent tool for making messages memorable!

AkzoNobel’s “People. Planet. Paint.” message turns out not to be just a message but indeed a lifeblood if the essence of the company’s recent R&D opening has been gleaned correctly. I also felt that by the end of its latest opening event that passion, pride, quietness and quality could also be added to the list, the latter two reflecting a quintessential Englishness.

Chatting with Thierry Vanlancker, AkzoNobel’s CEO, at the launch of the new R&D Center for decorative paints in the UK and Ireland, I remarked that AkzoNobel owed a lot to British companies such as Courtaulds and ICI, which it acquired a decade apart. “We keep the best,” he said proudly and quietly.

And so it was on with the day on 11th March 2022, when AkzoNobel invited journalists, politicians and key industry figures to the launch of its redeveloped R&D wing in Slough, UK. Four short presentations from José Antonio Jiménez (managing director for Decorative Paints, UK & Ireland), Fiona McLachlan (technical color director), Roger Jakeman (director – technical and product management) and Thierry Vanlancker (CEO) gave a carefully limited yet varied insight into the company.

The timing of the new facilities is appropriate on more than one level. Construction of the new facilities began in 2021, now some 90 years after the Dulux brand had been launched in 1931. Completion was reached in January 2022 and the newly-constructed wing reflected a £10 million investment. With it came two new (warehousing and air control) buildings that support the modern R&D function, housing in total 120 scientists, bringing its total R&D staff to over 400 in the UK. 

José Antonio Jiménez spoke of such topics and drove home the message about AkzoNobel’s passion for pioneering products and solutions, and unleashing them in the UK and Irish markets, which are clearly very important to the company. Roger Jakeman added in his talk that, “The UK was a key location for innovation and science at AkzoNobel” and highlighted the company’s “investment of £20 million in UK R&D in recent years.”

New for ‘22

The new Slough facilities serve only the decorative sector, and although forming a UK center, inputs and outputs of the R&D will be widely sourced from and shared across the EMEA region, where 50% of AkzoNobel’s sales now lie.

In particular, the Slough site is home to significant levels of expertise in pigments, colorants and color mixing, once again placing the emphasis on the very visual aspects of paint purchasing in the company’s relationship with the UK and Irish public.

There was also a brief change of backgrounding format where AkzoNobel spoke of its work with the local community, inclusivity, women in the workplace and the greater need for STEM graduates other than chemists to be working in the scientific side of the company, particularly for areas such as mathematical modelling.

It highlighted briefly its relationships with universities in the UK and underlined how important it was to attract young scientists into the firm. These are all very important messages for industry generally and the attraction and retention of young workers was a point made on multiple occasions throughout the day.   Executives repeatedly emphasized that the tenet of sustainability must penetrate the company’s beliefs right to the very core of its actions and targets, otherwise young employees soon lose interest.

Before journalists were taken on a guided tour of the facilities, Vanlancker mentioned how customers were the primary source of innovation for the company, and lapsing into an ever-so-slightly informal vernacular, he exemplified the company’s Paint The Future challenges as the embodiment of a rebel spirit within AkzoNobel, one which sought out challenges and one that was not frightened to embrace a diversity of different ideas.

It’s no understatement to say that the paint industry is under pressures of all kinds – the environmental, the pure regulatory, the responsiveness to the public that drives innovation. But furthermore there are time pressures to be fulfilled, and that places a greater need upon those in R&D.

Robotic or automated research is a major leap that many major chemical companies are now investing in, and AkzoNobel is no exception.

The new R&D facilities house automated high-throughput experimentation (HTE) facilities that are capable of processing hundreds of multi-variable experiments with a view to optimizing product formulation and product testing. Other time pressures that interest AkzoNobel are understanding how paint spraying can be advanced, since this is the least energy-intensive method for the consumer. It’s also an efficient process.

One especially engaging area was an application laboratory dedicated to wall paints, a place where some of the world’s best professional painters were employed for their judgement and technical understanding of paint properties. Although it’s easy to grasp that the wall paint application environment varies across the EMEA region (if not the world), the nature of the application tools also changes. How does one pick an “average” roller or brush that reproduces paint application in e.g. Turkey as opposed the UK and Ireland, where the climates differ too? Painters also paint differently – one imagines especially so in the DIY sector!

Fit For the Future

AkzoNobel is definitely fit for the future in more ways than one. Vanlancker mentioned that the company was in better shape now than it was five years ago and “that its wrinkles and love-handles” had been ironed out. A lean machine! But an increasingly green machine too as AkzoNobel was the first paintmaker to sign up to science-based targets to protect the planet, the target for the next chapter in its development. Sustainability will undoubtedly play a significant role in the future. But there is another way in which the operations will be fit for the future, and this is the second way in which the timing is right for the new facilities.

Winds of change look likely to blow through the paint and coatings sector (and other sectors) in the long term. Recent moves within the EU with the new Transition Pathway are likely to herald a wave of new technologies that will be the ultimate in eco-friendliness in terms of sustainability and circularity. The details are not available yet, but whatever is outlined for the chemical and paint industries’ next chapter, it will almost certainly mean going back to the drawing-board on the technology front and many in industry are saying there is a desperate need for innovation. At a good guess, the main challenges will be in connecting the use of non-toxic, recycled or sustainable materials at the beginning of the supply chain to effective coating performance and application at the other. Key areas are likely to be what chemical structures these materials or eco-resins might have, what their curing, drying or oxidation behavior will be like and how eco-friendly that can be made too (particularly if external energy sources are needed). Undoubtedly there will be trade-offs and challenges to be addressed, just as the industry experienced with the development of water-based paints. But there will also be masses of contemporary, high-tech eco-research to draw upon as decorative paints move from being water-based to having greater sustainability credentials.

The Dulux dog will be in good shape learning some new tricks!