The Technology Center in Deerlijk (Belgium) plays a key part in Bekaert’s research and development effort and directs the research performed by the Bekaert Asia R&D Center in Jiangyin (Jiangsy province, China) and the regional development centers like San Diego (California, United States), Inchalam (Chile) and Assen (Netherlands).
International collaboration with highly qualified scientists and engineers from the business segments has become the keystone of all our technological progress: all over the world they work closely together with lead customers and with colleagues from different business segments or regions.
“How can we delight customers?”, is the question we ask. Sometimes it is by small improvements, but often these can offer a great added value. Some time ago for example, we were looking for a solution to two market trends in Europe – increasingly smaller homes and growing energy bills. The result? We designed smaller but more efficient burners…
By maximizing the synergy between our two core competences for the benefit of our customers, we can make a real difference. For example, we apply advanced coatings to impart specific properties to our advanced wire products and find new applications for existing Bekaert products in other market segments.
Open innovation and corporate venturing
We do not pursue collaboration and cross-fertilization internally only, but also externally. We strive for ‘open innovation’ with customers, but also with research centers and universities. Bekaert has strategic R&D partnerships with the Fraunhofer Institut (Germany), Tsinghua University (China), Slovak University of Technology (Slovakia) and Sirris, the Belgian technology industry research center (formerly WTCM). Bekaert also sponsors doctoral dissertations for instance at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), the University of Ghent (Belgium) and the Tsinghua University (China). We have entered into contracts with around 40 international high-tech companies.
We also invest in long-term innovation by advancing risk capital to start-ups. We take interests in young companies whose expertise or operations complement Bekaert’s own.