Nowadays, everybody seems to be talking about innovation and how important it is for companies to grow and survive. There are hundreds of books and interesting papers about innovation but many of them tend to focus on techniques to generate ideas for innovative products and most of them tend to miss the basic fact that innovation goes well beyond the invention of new products.
On the other hand, the chemical industry and the chemical engineering profession are not envisioned by the general public as very innovative fields. Such perception may have some validity if we compare the industry and the profession with the so called “technology” sector, considering that in electronics and computers the changes and innovations tend to happen very fast and such businesses transform themselves constantly. Furthermore, even some chemical engineers associate innovation with a scientist in the lab inventing a new product, which corresponds to R&D work, without realizing that chemical engineering offers tremendous opportunities for innovation in pretty much all its areas of application (including new products and new processes but also covering plant design, plant operation, distribution, etc.).
Unfortunately, the general public does not understand the key role and the associated innovation of chemical engineers and the chemical industry on providing food, water, energy and goods to a growing population. Some people don’t even understand the role of chemistry and chemical engineering to enable many of the technological advances in other disciplines via for example better and less expensive plastics, electronic materials and batteries for smart phones and all other electronic gadgets.
This article will discuss innovation in chemical engineering, and will explain how you and your organization can become more innovative.