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Dossier SolvayInnovationTrophy2006
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Ordinarily, tradition and innovation confront each
other like sworn enemies.
At Lafarge, the world’s number one construction
materials group, they’ll freely admit that the sector
used to be somewhat conservative, but they’re
determined to move beyond this with a genuine
strategy for progress. By thinking about people
and their environment.
Apriori, many powerful forces act as a brake on innovation.
To mention just the two largest: force of habit
amongst professional builders and the low turnover of
customers, which do little to encourage suppliers to adopt
new ways of working. Despite all this, the Lafarge group has decided
to press ahead, against the current, and to provide customers
with greater value. And its research budget, whilst low compared
with other sectors, is above that of its competitors. A major component,
moreover, is a change of mindset, which in principle costs
nothing. Like when, faced with a problem of foaming during plaster
production, Lafarge people went to Danone to see how it stabilizes
its chocolate mousse.
Progress by breaking with the past
This proactive approach is enabling Lafarge to bring to market
resolutely new products, which break with existing solutions.
Corporate policy is to move beyond the incremental progress
often linked to process research, with innovative products deriving
directly from pure research.
This policy is producing really amazing results. For example,
Lafarge is right now testing concretes which remain very fluid
for two hours and then set so fast that the formwork can be
removed after four hours. It also produces 400 m 2 slabs without
joints or cracks, which reduces maintenance costs 16-fold.
It has also succeeded in producing plasterboards with four
rounded edges, permitting for the first time the perfect finishing
of plasterboard walls.
It is important to state that Lafarge’s good technical and commercial
results are the outcome of the group’s desire to speed up
progress, expressed in a series of very concrete programmes.
This is a complex process embracing both sales and research.
Product application:
the Spinnaker Tower (U.K.).
Far beyond legal oblig
As Lafarge people are quick to remind you, the success of an innovation
lies not in the product itself, but the ability to deploy it
and make it a success (1) .
Sustainable citizenship
Although this is not easy, Lafarge tries to have as strong an environmental
and citizenship policy as possible. At times this lies in the
novelty of its products. For example in a range of self-placing concretes,
which do not need to be “vibrated” into place, and which
offer the cumulative benefits of better filling quality, better productivity
and reduced noise nuisance. Or again dust-free cements
which provide workers with healthier working conditions. In most
cases this policy is the fruit of the house philosophy - far from new
- which takes a pro-active stance in an industry that, by definition,
leaves a real imprint on our world. Like on landscapes: extracting
450 million tonnes a year from more than 1 000 quarries necessarily
leaves traces. Quarries are rehabilitated under plans which go
much further than legal requirements. Better still, Lafarge has
turned an obligation into a strategic direction: its soil remediation
programme at its own sites serves as an example to others. When
new operating permits are requested, decision-making authorities
and pressure groups are invited to an already rehabilitated site,
which becomes a visiting card. “If you’re not at the top, you’re
nowhere”, they say at Lafarge. This logic has been pushed as far as
producing meticulous biodiversity indexes (in conjunction with
WWF International), with a commitment to replicate these on quitting
the site. And last, but far from least, Lafarge applies its ethics