Borchers, a Milliken & Co. company, is a global manufacturer and leading supplier of coating additives and specialty catalyst solutions. With technical service teams in the US, Germany, and China, Borchers faced the challenge of meeting constantly changing customer needs while adhering to increasingly stringent environmental regulations and specific market demands. The company prioritized quick response times and effective collaboration both within and outside of the organization. However, the lack of a unified system for application development and testing posed a significant challenge. The company needed a solution that could streamline data capture at each step of the process, from opportunities and projects to formulations, testing, analysis, feedback, and beyond.

Chemstar, a provider of environmentally friendly, high-performance starch-based polymers, was faced with the challenge of accelerating their new product development and expanding into new applications. To achieve this, they needed to shorten their new product development process and expand their R&D and sales teams. The company was also looking to digitize their project workflows and implement a data-driven project scoring process. The goal was to track the entire process, from a new customer request through product development and delivery, and to provide quantified insights into the end-to-end process. This would enable executives to continuously improve the innovation process and make informed decisions about which projects to pursue.

Circle-Prosco, Inc. (CPI), a provider of custom metal finishing formulations to aluminum and automotive manufacturers, was facing challenges in managing its sales, technical service, and lab work. The company had been experiencing aggressive growth, which led to a significant expansion of their sales, R&D, and quality teams. However, their existing stand-alone CRM system was unable to interface with the lab or support CPI's technical process. This lack of integration resulted in a lack of shared visibility of sales opportunities, lab projects, and customer feedback among the sales, technical service, and lab teams. Additionally, the process of generating sales quotes was time-consuming, taking up to 4 hours for each quote.

Magni, a leading provider of protective coatings for various applications, was facing challenges with its back-end formulation development process. The process was managed using a combination of Excel and Deacom ERP, and their project management systems were based on SharePoint. This setup was not efficient and lacked real-time visibility into the latest product and project information for their worldwide team of experts. In 2020, Magni decided to modernize its back-end formulation development process and replace their SharePoint-based project management systems. The challenge was to integrate all R&D formulation development and Tech Service projects into a unified system that would provide real-time visibility and streamline operations.

Origin by Ocean, a company developing core biorefining technology to extract value from marine biomass, had the opportunity to set up a brand-new lab in September 2020. The challenge was to ensure that all their detailed R&D data was captured digitally, reusable, and AI-ready from day one. Dr. Mari Granström, the Chief Science Activist and Co-founder of Origin by Ocean, had previous experience with labs conforming to software, which often led to inefficiencies and misalignments with the company's vision and goals. She was determined to find a solution that would fit the company's vision and goals in terms of lab best practices, rather than the lab having to adapt to the software.

Vibrantz, a company known for its commitment to constant improvement and exceptional customer service, was facing challenges in tracking projects, formulas, materials, testing, and feedback for their new development and technical service requests. The company was using outdated Sharepoint and Biovia lab notebook systems, which were not efficient enough to meet their growing needs. The technical service teams were handling thousands of color match requests and related lab work each year, but the process of capturing all formulation and test data was cumbersome and time-consuming. The company was also struggling with automating calculations, process steps, and approvals to speed up the end-to-end tech service process.

DCL, a leading technical service provider, was facing challenges in managing its technical service and quality control cycles. The company was struggling with time-consuming data reentry, duplication of lab work, and inefficient management of lab tests and work. The technical service team was finding it difficult to quickly turn around requests from sales and provide comprehensive reporting for all projects completed in its U.S. technical center. The existing process involved capturing all formulation and test data manually, which was not only cumbersome but also prone to errors. Moreover, the data was stored in spreadsheets and hard-to-find files, making it difficult to access and analyze when needed.

Hauthaway, a company with a rich history dating back to the mid-1800s, has always been at the forefront of innovation and reinvention. Over the years, the company has evolved from manufacturing protective coatings for leather shoes to producing polyurethane polymers and compound finishing materials for various industries including automotive, biomedical, construction, maintenance, and textile. However, the company faced challenges in managing its chemistry innovation process. Weekly meetings required pulling information from four different systems, which was a time-consuming and inefficient process. Moreover, valuable past formula, test, and technical data were trapped in paper notebooks and were rarely referenced. This meant that chemists often had to start from scratch for every new project. Additionally, the onboarding process for new chemists was slow as they had to navigate through disparate systems and data sources.