Turning Research Into Patents
March 17, 2010 2008 was a year of challenges. Faced with the impact of the global financial crisis, it was clear that Taiwan’s textile industry would need to innovate and strive to upgrade in order to maintain its position within a rapidly changing international business environment.
Over the last few years, the Taiwan Textile Research Institute (TTRI) has been working actively to build a closer partnership with the textile industry, seeking to identify manufacturers’ needs and helping the industry to increase its value-added offerings.
At the same time, TTRI has also allocated considerable time and resources to the issue of corporate social responsibility. By developing environmentally friendly technologies, TTRI has helped manufacturers to improve their corporate image. Every TTRI employee is aware of his or her responsibility as a member of the global community; the development of environmentally friendly “green” textile products is a key part of TTRI’s vision for the future development of the Taiwanese textile industry.
Today, the mass-market textiles segment no longer offers significant opportunities for the Taiwanese industry. The key issue facing the industry today is how to re-focus on high-value-added products. What this means from the point of view of TTRI is that we should be listening to the grassroots, hearing what individual manufacturers have to say, and turning research results into patents that meet the industry’s needs.
Leveraging the NSDB (Need/Solution/Difference/Benefit) model that TTRI has adopted over the last few years, we need to concentrate on helping the textile industry to create value in niche markets through differentiation. By integrating external resources with key technologies, we can bring about an across-the-board upgrading of research and development capabilities, thereby contributing to value creation through industrial upgrading.
In the environmentally friendly textiles segment, the new Yunlin Branch of TTRI will be focusing its efforts on the recycling of heat energy in dyeing and finishing processes, and on “green” textile product promotion.
The five seminars that the Yunlin Branch has held over the past six months have all been packed; this in itself is a tribute to the efforts that TTRI has made over the past few years to promote environmentally friendly textile technology, efforts the importance of which is now being recognized by the industry. In line with the plan to promote research and development alliances to develop nanotech and environmentally friendly functional textile products (one the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ three “Hundred Billion” plans targeting the textile industry), TTRI will be working closely with textile manufacturers to ensure the sustainable development of the textile industry.
In August 2008, TTRI signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to collaborate on the development of technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by leveraging their respective strengths.
Since taking up the position of president of TTRI in February 2008, I have been struck by how passionately committed TTRI employees are to furthering the development of Taiwan’s textile industry. In the future, TTRI will continue to lead the way in the development of new textile technology, while striving to be a first-class, valued partner for textile manufacturers.
Despite the difficult environment that we find ourselves in — in which we are faced with the twin challenges of the global financial crisis and increased corporate social responsibility demands — I firmly believe that Taiwan’s textile industry will be able to build on the solid foundations that it has already established to march onwards to ever higher heights of excellence. The more than 300 employees of TTRI will be standing in the frontline in the battle to develop new technologies, doing their utmost to support the ongoing development of the Taiwanese textile industry.
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