Business processes: How to reduce cost with Nano technology

In times of financial prudence, credit scarcity, retrenchment, solvency risk and everyone demanding more for less, how can business organizations improve their business processes and grow their profits? How can compliancy in best business practice mean reduction in facility costs? Are there still opportunities to do things better? What if you could add remarkable value to your company products? Or indeed remove an entire manufacturing or business process? Can innovation in technology really deliver cash savings?

Almost every business organisation (and Government Department) today is unaware of nano-coatings; thin film coatings that are up to 100 000 times smaller than the diameter of a fly-hair! These smart fluids including varnishes and related paints can offer incredible functionality to products; assets and infrastructure, saving businesses and cash strapped Local Authorities billions of pounds in revenue costs.

Smart fluids change surface chemistry, adding value, strength, diversity and functionality. Classic chemistry is unaltered, just our understanding of what happens is new when one controls atoms and molecules at the molecular scale and consolidating new ingredients for stability in robust fluids.

So how can our busy CE0’s, SME’s and Senior Government Employees benefit from knowledge of these business processes and applications?

Smart fluids (paints, varnishes & thin film coatings) offer every business new and positive business processes. From enabling entire building and food processing units, health centres to be cleaned (with 75% reduction in aggressive cleaning materials, 40% reduction in water usage, 40% reduction in labour), to preventing wear and fatigue in all moving mechanical parts like lifts, (bearings, gears and pistons). Imagine no mechanical wear! It’s not just farmers and drilling rigs that can benefit here. Anyone with large transport fleets can benefit with savings of around 11% in fuel, less maintenance and reduced emissions. Frankfurt Airport reduced the costs of aircraft generators by a reasonable margin by being aware of metal protect fluids. And savvy wind turbine owners and operators know how to keep their blades clean, their gears working and electronics in good shape by being ahead of the game in smart fluid functionality. Some big insurance companies already have their entire buildings protected against employee cross-infection. Hospitals can learn from the risk prevention specialists!

What if we could add this magic protection to CCTV cameras, making the internal heat resisters impervious to corrosive moisture? How much would that save the UK taxpayer? Additionally, one could add more functionality to legacy CCTV’s, say the ability to detect radiation! Would that reduce hospital costs and provide superior security to London commuters?

Water and electronics don’t normally mix. Would it be good to protect all electronic equipment (+ cables) from the menace of water, moisture and dust? What is the fire risk associated with corrosive cabling in old buildings and underground infrastructure? Sometime the obvious is slow to reach the decision maker. It took bar-codes fifty years!

Imagine sound proof barriers and heat shields at the end of a painter’s brush! No more heavy and costly insulation: just a few coatings of paint and bingo your home, office, mobile-fridge, ServerSite or warehouse is energy efficient and BREAM compliant. Could this save your plant and engineering processes revenue? Look at the possible savings in material costs alone.

From textiles to steel, wood, glass, concrete to paper, jewellery and leather, even ceramics; you name it and there are coatings that can add magic functionality. Surfaces can be made super-repellent to water, oil, dirt and grime. In fact most of these materials can be rendered positively antimicrobial also, reducing the risk of MRSA/C.Diff etc. Would this save the NHS revenue?

Reduce costs and improve business processes in the food sector

What about the food sector? How can these fluids increase hygiene, reduce costs and improve business processes, from grower to processor and onward to supermarket and consumer.

Could we improve packaging, could we add additional value? Hundreds of applications exist to enhance seed and root development, to remove risk of drought or over-watering by using new technologies like a tank inspection camera, to prevent toxic river-discharge, and remove bacterial damage to seeds, to eradicate spider-mite in poultry farms, to enhance hygiene across every level of breeding and production.

That life can be enhanced for transport infrastructure and city dwellers there is little doubt. Air and enhanced water quality via nano-filters are coming. Hygiene on public transports will improve. Light and colour will improve as materials are selected for new intrinsic value.

Roads will last 100 years, not 20. Bridges will become anti-corrosive. Wood will be naturally protected much like the broccoli leaf and in time deflect termites and dirt. Lots of preservatives and external coatings that sell annually will be redundant. Property by the sea will be painted perhaps once in twenty years, or longer.

The manipulation of materials at the molecular scale offers amazing hope in the fight against disease. Prevention of course is better than cure and our ability to see early stage cancer or cell degeneration offers scope not just to fight disease but extend life itself far in excess to what we imagine today.

Innovation is a step by step process. The big eureka moment is a myth. Whilst today surface coatings offer remarkable value for business process efficiency, tomorrow this technology will transform everything we experience throughout every step of life. So whilst human cell innovation and research is happening now, the market is already offering thin-film coatings that can add compelling value to your business today. Why wait and waste revenue! Smash the mindset that locks innovation and change within your business. Give your cleaning staff a microfiber cloth for Christmas! Remove every item of polish, bleach, wax, detergent and aroma snake-oil from your cleaning cupboards and start to clean environmentally, saving revenue in the process. The knowledge you receive from surface coatings will create numerous alternative innovations as you deploy this new science to every aspect of you commercial and personal life.

About the author: Dermott Reilly is passionate about making technology deliver. He worked in the food sector for many years where he had hands on experience of wastage and inefficiency in that sector. Over the last decade Dermott spearheaded a number of projects where emerging technologies helped improve business and quality of live. Dermott has four patents registered and helps companies drive innovative projects forward. He is Training Manager EMEA for RFID4U and Strategic Consultant for emerging technologies.

View Dermott’s short bio

Companies and organizations globally are striving to increase profit and shareholder value in times of phenomenal socio-economic change and political financial upheaval. Business is never easy and when times are tough the consensus often is to focus on core competencies, ruthlessly cutting costs, doing more with less. Perspectives can be reduced in recessionary periods as companies focus to survive. However, perspectives, whilst powerful are culturally determined and open to influence, redirection and positive change. Business management in all companies must embrace the wider perspective to benefit from the compelling value available across the socio-technical horizon.

So what are the wider perspectives?

There is little doubt that consumers everywhere are becoming much more environmentally sensitive and vocal. The issues around C02 Footprint, fresh water, energy, pollution, waste, health, resource depletion, climate change, poverty, the Green Movement, etc., affect every citizen, company and organization on this planet. We are much more interconnected that we ever realized and the success of companies today and in the future will depend on their perspectives and actions in embracing major problems that impact all citizens.

Therefore a company / organisation strategy ideally, regardless of size, should be in alignment with goals that identify positively with issues facing the community, country and citizens globally. Companies must act responsibly and be seen to care.

How do companies adopt the wider perspective whilst maintaining profit levels and market share?

The higher vision gear-change for companies can be much easier to implement and offer scope for multiple profits, new revenue channels and cost saving opportunities. The focus should be on people first and emerging technology second.

People First

In times of rapid change and economic upheaval employees can be stressed and vulnerable. Hence companies need to embrace their teams effectively with better communication (more flat line structures) and where necessary, add esteem-morale building strategies. Military type command structures offer zero value in 21st century businesses. Companies need to have all employees (team members) on board by consensus, mutual appreciation and respect – and this can only come naturally by being sympathetic to the needs and aspirations of staff in the first place.

Companies that are in sync with employee goals are more in sync with community values and wider issues globally that incorporate major issues like Climate Change and Sustainability. Take Google for example? Aware of the massive energy requirements from servers and internet users around the globe, Google are actively looking at ways to source alternative and sustainable energy. They see the wider perspective.

When everyone in an organisation pulls together amazing productivity values and ideas are created.

Emerging Technology

Emerging technologies like nano-bio-technologies offer remarkable value in helping companies to 1, save revenue, and 2, build brand value via positive reputation.

How can emerging technology save companies money?

Every business on the planet can further reduce operating costs. By starting small within the office, factory, car or town, nano coatings alone, for example, offer solutions that:

1. reduce water usage
2. remove aggressive cleaning chemicals
3. stop environmental depreciation and reduce carbon footprint
4. cut emissions and pollutants
5. enhance energy efficiency, minimizing waste
6. reduce mechanical wear and material consumption
7. open doors for new cleaner products and revenue
8. improve health, food production, resources

By implementing Clean Tech strategies companies save revenue

These “green” technologies offer additional compelling value however because there usage actually helps address sustainability issues & protects our environment.

A company or organisation with environmental and sustainable goals in addition to its core activity attracts a positive energy ethos that can drive real Brand value forward. Costs and risks are reduced. Employees, supply chains and clients can be galvanised into collective positive action. We are all in this together philosophy. The triple profit line of profit, community value and environmental trust pushes companies and organisations into a much higher league visually and operationally, with humility and respect for humanity, society and nature, being drivers incorporating the wider real perspective. The win-win-win principle has never being so apt and necessary.

Many companies and organisations are aware of the benefits of going green. However many are still unaware of how nano-smart fluids can turn them into profitable and responsible operations overnight, simply by adopting incremental changes, using nano technology and related emerging technology.

View Dermott’s short bio