New Product Development: The Journey from Bench-Scale Testing and Manufacturing into Practice

The path that any new product idea follows from conceptualization, through validation and finally ends up in commercialization, will be a long and difficult journey filled with many pitfalls and sink holes.  The development process begins with an idea for a product meets customer needs.  The first phase of development begins with the laboratory preparation of the candidate product and submission of this product sample to a customer for evaluation. Based upon customer feedback, the laboratory procedure can be modified into one or more series of unit operations to be evaluated as part of the candidate manufacturing processes. At this stage the involvement and review by the manufacturing process operators, health and safety professionals, plant engineering and finance groups is of paramount importance.

Key elements of the process include:

• The rapid and constant interaction between the development group and the intended customer/market at each stage of the project.
• A development team composed of representatives from both the commercial and technical groups
• Concise dashboard illustrating project expectations, responsibilities, and progress
• Project accountability by the use of a simple return

This paper discusses the path of moving a new product from the laboratory to pilot-scale manufacturing and finally into real-world application. The technology concept involves use of slow-release chemical oxidants to treat chlorinated solvents and large dilute plumes of 1,4 dioxane. Permanganate or persulfate is embedded in a paraffin wax formulation and can be emplaced with direct push technology, existing monitoring wells, in permeable reactive barriers (PRBs), or hydraulically fractured into low permeability media. As part of the process of moving a new product from laboratory to practice engineering design tools are needed for successful technology implementation. To this end, a design tool is being developed for pracitioners to understand important site design parameters.