Integrating Process Safety and Innovation

The concept of a 'success modes and effects analysis (SMEA)' is discussed to identify and address the consequences of success in the innovation process. Of necessity, the innovation process begins with the discovery or development of something novel or unique that appears to meet a commercial or technical gap in the market. Even at this early stage of innovation, the SMEA process will help guide laboratory decisions on solvents, raw materials, synthesis pathways, and other technical issues that may have a major impact on commercial and technical viability. The next step in the development process of any novel idea or product is determining whether there is a viable business case for the product. At the third stage in the development process, laboratory work is directed at finalizing the synthesis routes and process conditions to produce the desired material at the specifications and purity required to meet the business case. By Stage 4, the technical veracity of the process should be well-developed; processing conditions and overall composition ranges should be established to the point where processing equipment can be selected and designed to determine commercial feasibility. Stage 5 is a straight-forward matter of using the technical outputs from Stages 1 through 3 along with the commercial and regulatory outputs of Stage 4 to determine whether the product can be commercialized successfully.