Annual Report 1998

32
Research and development
CUSTOMER-ORIENTED RESEARCH
SCA continually develops new products to meet customers’ demands. The company’s development work also
focuses on reducing production costs and minimizing environmental impact.
SCA’s research concentrates on creating added value by offering
the customer a better product, increasing recovery of
materials and energy in production, and increasing the proportion
of recyclable material in SCA’s products. This focus is a logical
consequence of SCA’s business concept, which focuses on
long-term favorable profitability and a closed-loop philosophy.
To maintain a high degree of recycling, natural by-products
of pulp manufacturing are collected and incinerated, which in
turn generates energy that is redirected back into production.
Moreover, production processes are continually adjusted to increase
the proportion of renewable resources such as recycled
paper.
SCA’s research is customer-oriented. Through market research
and direct contact with customers, SCA develops new
improved products that increase the company’s competitiveness.
This work is often conducted by project groups working
close to the customer to identity preferences and requirements
or communicate SCA’s own improvement suggestions. The
ideas are then evaluated in a technical and commercial perspective
to assess their feasibility.
These aims and procedures depend on efficient, marketoriented
research. For this reason, the organization is projectoriented
and based on delegation, assigning responsibility to
carry out development work to all Group functions. The operations
are spread over four research centers: Sundsvall and
Diapers are often constructed using so-called super-absorbents
to increase their absorption capacity. In sanitary pads, however,
the possibilities for using these substances are limited.
The development project began when it was discovered that
a type of pulp manufactured at the Östrand pulp plant in
Sweden could absorb blood unusually well. Consequently, in
1993, Östrand – a unit of SCA Graphic Paper – and SCA
Hygiene Products launched a joint project to develop a new
absorbent material based on paper pulp.
Two years of intensive effort, where the material was developed
further to meet all absorption, comfort and softness
Gothenburg in Sweden, Aylesford in southern England and
Mannheim in Germany. SCA employs about 700 persons in research
and development operations.
SCA’s research and development operations in Sundsvall
will be reinforced substantially by the planned new university
for research in the forest industry, to which SCA will relocate
its research center. This will create close links between primary
research, applied research, product development and production.
New products
SCA maintains a high level of innovation to continually
strengthen the company’s competitiveness. On average, SCA
applies for 60 to 80 patents a year for a new product or production
process – that is, more than one patent application a
week. Apart from such applications, SCA launches several
product innovations. In the pulp and paper field it is more
common that new production techniques are developed which
provide for improved products or lower production costs. A
good example of this is the new low-energy TMP technology.
Number of patent applications
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
85 67 66 75 77
The new Efficapt sanitary pad – a joint project of SCA business areas
standards, as well as environmental requirements, etc., placed
on sanitary pads, resulted in a prototype of the Libresse Invisible
pad with Efficapt, as the unique new absorbent material
was called. The new product was based entirely on renewable
raw materials. The key in the development process was to
find just the right fiber distribution that would cause fluids to
be properly distributed in the pad.
Following a final phase of investments in new machinery
for serial production of the sanitary pad, the new product was
ready to be launched in spring 1997.