PhiZero: Bottom-Up Innovation at SGR North America

Saint-Gobain Research North America is winding up its 9^th year of our internal PhiZero program. PhiZero is a program funded by Corporate R&D to foster bottom-up innovation. The program is run at different Saint-Gobain R&D centers globally to give employees at the centers a chance to take on projects they wouldn’t normally be able to or want to explore further. These projects range from business related challenges that have yet to be solved to entirely new product ideas.

The concept of the PhiZero program is simple, employees at SGR North America that have an idea that isn’t within their day-to-day scope can submit a project for consideration. Each year somewhere between 10 to 15 projects are selected and explored through the program, selected projects are given funding allowing for exploratory research to be completed in about six months.

"Out-of-box thinking is the most critical element to PhiZero projects” says Ying Wang, program committee member, “each participant is encouraged to try, fail fast and keep on trying.”

The 2019 PhiZero projects have been running since May. These diverse areas of research and development include exploring new materials, introducing digital technologies into our existing products and processes and creating something totally new using the materials expertise and technology available at SGR North America.

Previous projects from the PhiZero program have gone on to be commercialized or adopted by business units and we expect nothing less from the remarkable projects being executed this year.

Stay tuned for the winners of the 2019 Saint-Gobain Research North America PhiZero program.