Being one company--everywhere!

John Bohenick, Senior Vice President, North American Power Transmission Division for Gates Corporation, kicked off the conference with a high-level overview of the Gates Power Transmission Global Organization.

Best known around the world for its belts, hoses and hydraulics, Gates Corporation is a global company, with customers in Europe, the Americas and Asia. "Being global means being one company wherever you are working in the world," he emphasized. "Each individual should be taking the strength of the entire company with them when they go out to meet customers and suppliers. One company means one vision, one culture, one process, one R&D process and one focus on science and technology." We try to develop platforms based on the customers' cost and performance requirements. A product platform is an integrated collection of technology elements and architectural rules (interfaces) for organizing those elements into viable products," he explained.

The benefits of such an approach go beyond one customer's need. "A solid platform strategy leverages the resulting products, enabling them to be deployed rapidly and consistently. This leveraging can introduce a commonality that reduces manufacturing costs," he noted.

And when it develops products, Gates involves all business disciplines to prioritorize new and enhanced product lines. "We use one global project management system and we include senior management in the development process," he said. Bohenick was particularly adamant that R&D should be treated as a business process. "R&D managers must become business managers driven by technology and market needs," he urged. "These essential people should not become a distant group that by itself must perform miracles. All key disciplines, such as finance, purchasing, manufacturing and marketing need to drive the R&D process."

Bohenick said that Gates has a new vision of elastomers as a composite science. "There is a need to understand the interface between product and applications, and then use that knowledge to help customers determine which composites they need to meet their performance specifications," he said.

"Technology drives wealth," Bohenick argued. "We estimate that about 15-20 percent of next year's sales will come from R&D." To capitalize on new opportunities, companies should "establish a process to evaluate emerging technologies and new ideas quickly for business potential," he advised. "You should also allocate a significant portion of resources towards growth outside of your traditional business," he added. Gates is moving towards joint development agreements. "Soon half of our R&D will be taking place outside of the company with various ventures," he predicted. "These partnerships will leverage expertise and maximize results."