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Dr. George
Stephanopoulos, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and a world-renowned expert in process systems
engineering, recently accepted a two-year appointment as
Chief Technology Officer at Mitsubishi Chemical (Mitsubishi
Monitor, October/November 2000). Here are some of his thoughts
on transforming a huge research and development organization.
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| "This
is the biggest challenge of my professional career,
and I am determined to succeed. I am determined to
leave Mitsubishi Chemical as a major player in the
world chemical industry." |
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On
the market interface...
"Or
focus is on the marketplace. Our direction is toward profitable
growth. It all comes down to that phrase that the sports
agent played by Tom Cruise keeps repeating in the movie
Jerry McGuire: _Show me the money!'
"Some of our products and technologies
offer tremendous potential. Others offer mediocre opportunities.
We will select the ones that offer the greatest potential.
And we will concentrate our resources on those items.
"To sharpen our focus on real market needs,
we are transferring downstream R&D to our business divisions
and affiliates: petrochemicals; pharmaceuticals; specialty
chemicals; carbon, agricultural, and animal health products;
functional materials; and information and electronics. They
will be responsible for detecting client needs and doing
everything possible with established technologies to serve
those needs." |
On
organization...
"Our new Science and Technology Research Center provides
Mitsubishi Chemical with its first really unified management
for all basic research. R&D in the business divisions will
consist primarily of optimizing our existing technologies
and applying them to evolving customer needs. The Science
and Technology Research Center is where we will do more
than optimizing, where we will create truly new technologies.
"That will include cutting-edge work in
the life sciences, for example, and in advanced functional
materials. Our Mitsubishi Kasei Institute for Life Sciences,
by the way, will continue to lead our work in molecular
biology and genetics and also will undertake work in bioinformatics
and systems biology. And we have established the Science
and Technology Office to chart long-term strategy."
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| "We
are swinging for home runs. The business we are targeting
in such sectors as life sciences, plastic electronics,
and solid-state lighting each could be worth billions
of dollars a year. Even a modest batting average would
multiply the company's total net sales severalfold." |
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 | "We
need knowledge generators, not experimenters. And generating
lucrative knowledge means questioning everything. Product
development projects typically start with a set of specifications
provided by the marketing people. The project members need
to question those specifications ruthlessly. We can waste
a lot of time and money on achieving tighter tolerances
than customers really require. Good communication between
R&D and marketing can illuminate ways to simplify designs,
for instance, and lower manufacturing costs." |
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On
tie-ups...
"The ideas that will support most of our growth will
come from outside the company. That's a fact of life in
high-technology business. The scope of scientific discovery
is far too broad to cover at any single company.
"We announced a strategic collaboration
recently, for example, with the University of California
at Santa Barbara. Our company will fund the establishment
of a new center there for work on advanced materials. And
we will place some of our own researchers in the center."
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On
profit planning...
"A group of researchers and engineers came to me recently
with a proposal. They wanted to make a big investment in
R&D in a promising sector. They projected global demand
of X billion dollars in that sector by the year 2008. And
they calculated that Mitsubishi Chemical could secure 10%
of the market. "They also had done their math in regard
to the R&D expenditures. But then I asked, _How much will
you be able to charge for the product?' They didn't know.
_What will the manufacturing costs be?' Again, they didn't
know. I sent them away with instructions to come back with
a fuller set of numbers. As I say, Show me the money."
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