Between them Jürgen Weese and Eduard Pelssers have 23 years’ experience working at Philips. So they are ideally placed to explain Philips Research’s role. According to Jürgen, that role involves asking questions that dig beyond the surface of an issue.

“Philips Research aims to help Philips grow by delivering innovations that really make a difference to people,” says Jürgen.
However, the world is a very complex place. You can’t change it with a single idea. Look at biofuels. They can cut our oil consumption but also reduce our food supply. You have to look at the bigger picture.

It’s the same here. Creating and developing ideas and technologies that lead to successful products is very important. But single products don’t make a real difference. We need to think about complete solutions.

Today at Philips, my field of healthcare research isn’t just developing new and improved scanners. We’re asking ourselves ‘How can we make life better for someone with this condition?’

One example I’ve worked on was heart attacks caused by coronary occlusions (obstructions in coronary arteries). We can develop new and better tools for clearing obstructions, but research shows that one of the biggest factors to patient survival is the time it takes to start treatment. Knowing that, we’re developing care-cycle ideas that make it possible to diagnose coronary occlusions in the ambulance and inform the hospital en route. So the hospital is prepared and can start treatment as soon as the patient arrives.”

As Eduard explains, the key to asking – and answering – those questions lies in having a comprehensive blend of skills all working together.

“I believe true innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s about applications. At Philips Research, we have long-term research, product development and system integration in one organization.

For me, it’s important to have all these people working together on a project. Product developers can help shape the technology towards first-time-right, first-of-a-kind products from the start. And if the researchers who come up with the original ideas stay on board throughout a project, it is easier to identify what is really critical for a technology.

This makes the innovation process more efficient. Ideas get to market faster and new product platform concepts have more chance of being successful.

But it’s also important to know, understand and interpret customer and market requirements. Last year, I spent a lot of time working with new customers. Customers are interested in solutions and want a clear view on how to reach them.

I think Philips Research’s breadth of activity really helps us here. If I’m dealing with a new problem, I can often get a good idea of how the solution might look from colleagues in other areas. So I can start giving customers advice earlier. Also, I know I don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ all the time, I can draw on solutions from other sectors. In fact, organizing for re-use across application fields helps reduce costs and speed up our innovation.”