solvay_live243_p02a04 somEdito

105028
STIMULATING INNOVATION AT SOLVAY ADVANCED
POLYMERS – THE INNOVATION CAFÉ
INNOVATION CAFÉ:
CREATING A CULTURE
OF INNOVATION
Innovation is widely recognized as the key
to long-term survival in today’s business climate.
Harnessing the power and realizing the business
benefits of innovation prompted the Leadership
Team of Solvay Advanced Polymers to formalise
the innovative process. This began with
the creation of a multifunctional, global
Innovation Team. Their goal – develop and
encourage the processes and tools that enable and
facilitate innovation across the entire organization.
The Team followed a model known as Open
Innovation to gather best practices, which it
combined with the results of its own research
to develop a context for innovation known as the
Innovation Cafe. This distinctive framework
has inspired a culture change, unleashing and
stimulating the innovation potential in all
900+ employees. Introduced in 2005, it focuses
innovation efforts on strategic challenges facing
the business, a practice proven to yield high-quality
and even breakthrough ideas. Moreover
it provided a framework and tool box to help
innovators generate ideas. Twenty-two employees
from the main worldwide sites were trained as
facilitators. Their mission is to carry out idea
generation sessions to support the Challenges.
Finally, an idea management process was
introduced to manage ideas as they move
from creativity to implementation. More than
30 Challenges have been carried out using
this process, with participation by over half of all
employees. Thousands of raw ideas have been
generated, many of which have led to new
projects in various areas of the business. Several
ideas have led to a significant increase
in revenues. The process is now considered
to be vital by Solvay Advanced Polymers.
> Thomas Balsano; Brian Alexander; William Bailey;
Maria Bertucci; Allison Crupi; Ian Kowalski;
Kermit Kwan; Stuart Mitchell; Vincent Nedeff;
Shawn Shorrock; Ray Summey; Grover Wallace;
Gregory Warkoski.
> SBU SPECIALTY POLYMERS
104639
SOLIA: A SOLVAY WIDE PERSONALIZED
ENVIRONMENT FOR MANAGING KNOWLEDGE
AND INFORMATION AND A PRIVILEGED VECTOR
FOR COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION
A NEW WAY
OF WORKING TOGETHER
From its outset in 2003, this project pursued
a clear ambition: much more
than an IT tool, its aim was to give a kick-start
to a far-reaching cultural change at Group
level, to promote the sharing of knowledge,
to give each employee a working autonomy
and to provide each entity with international
communication possibilities.
Defined with two university partners (ULB
and Vlerick Business School) and several
internal partners, the IT platform integrates,
in transparent way for the user, a document
management and collaboration tool,
a Web-based communication tool, a powerful
search engine and an “information cockpit”
that is personalised for each employee, adapted
to his/her function, in his/her own language.
The robustness of the system and the quality
of its governance process, having been
confirmed by pilot tests, SOLIA is now
rearing to go. It currently stocks over
645 000 documents and receives over
362 000 visits per month. The increase of
knowledge sharing within the Group can
already be felt.
> Jean-Louis Lieutenant; Kay Brunner; José Cervera;
Marco De Donno: Massimo Devecchi; Francesco Dilillo;
Pierre Drijvers; François Garang; Juergen Greilich;
Bernadette Hislaire; Robin Jenkins; Muriel Larzille;
Urbano Llamas; Gisèle Maréchal; Thierry Masson;
Eckart Nerge; Johan Parisse; Brian Scott; Luis Serrano;
Annick Stelandre; Sander Vanhulsenbeek;
Haimo Zekoll.
> OFFICE OF THE COMEX
Management improvement
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