Innovation is a key element for the future of our company. We continuously challenge our current solutions and come up with new solutions to preserve our business of tomorrow.
Since decades innovation is a top priority within the Bekaert group. It has continuously evolved and improved and finally led into the current Bekaert Innovation Process: a structured process that covers the initiation of an idea, the realization into a project and the commercialization phaze. Ideas from all over the Bekaert community are captured via an interactive web based innovation portal. Incoming new ideas are evaluated by technology and business people. After screening, a limited selection makes it into a project for further development.
The production units are responsible for the short-term product and process improvement programs which take maximum 2 years. These developments are conducted in key learning plants and local research centers based at the production plants. The Bekaert Technology Center runs about a dozen well-defined development projects with a longer scope.
An important aspect in innovation is the protection of valuable technological developments and marketing initiatives. Today we have a portfolio of almost 400 inventions protected by more than 2 100 patents.
In all the areas where we conduct technology we work together with local governments to sustain our development efforts. The governments play a prominent role in encouraging investment in research and development. The grants from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT) and the tax incentives from the Chinese and Belgian governments are essential in this.