A term used by some around the innovation water cooler is horizontal innovation. It is the transfer of knowledge and technology from one business sector to another. Instead of inventing something new, you leverage an existing raw material, product, or process from an industry different from your own to create new value for your products or processes. For example, suppose you happen to be attending a packaging conference and you see a vendor featuring a new additive used to make food wrappers more oil resistant. The natural question is, would this provide the same benefit in a coating formula? Of course, you need to have your eyes and ears open to see this as an opportunity, because for some, the potential benefit may not be obvious. If you can cultivate this ability to find, translate, and leverage technology from one area to another, your scouting efforts will be greatly enhanced. So what business sectors might be potential sources of leverageable technology for paints and coatings? Here’s a list of just a few.

  • Cosmetics
  • Inks
  • Plastics
  • Packaging
  • Adhesives and Sealants
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Paper
  • Textiles

Attending trade shows, reading their respective trade publications, and following the latest new products in these sectors may reveal an existing technology or process useful to the paint and coatings industry.

Cosmetics are much like a temporary coating using pigments, binders, encapsulated additives, preservatives, and UV blockers, as ingredients. Sounds familiar, right? Inks are now formulated to be conductive. What benefits could that add to a traditional coating? The coatings on pills made by pharmaceutical companies break down at very specific pHs in the body. Could this attribute be of benefit to certain coatings?  Paper coatings achieve great opacity with using little titanium dioxide. How is that accomplished?

All of this may sound like a lot of extra work if you are a chemist who is new to the coatings industry. But to a seasoned professional, seeking out opportunities in these sectors can be a potential new source of existing material for evaluation. Why is this a good thing? Two words—risk mitigation.

Chasing the latest in new technology often involves risks that naturally come with the newness of the material, especially if it comes from a startup company. It may not be available in large quantities. It may not have been scaled up through a robust manufacturing process. It may be a technology not fully vetted through the regulatory process. A lot can go wrong in early stage technology companies that is unforeseeable and hard to put in a budget. So, adding a few extra trips into the schedule to learn how adhesives and sealants get great adhesion or understanding how different textile fibers might make better paint rollers might be worth your time and effort. After all, there will be a ready source of supply by an established vendor who is already providing products to a market.

Leveraging existing technology into your products using horizontal innovation is just another way to expand your ability to generate new products with differentiating attributes. Try it!

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Dr. Victoria Scarborough is the owner and principle advisor at Materia Prima Ventures; (vscarborough@matprimeve.com)