Product Development in the Lab

Optimal Product Design with the Multi-Criteria Optimization Tool Qritos

When developing products such as coatings, drugs or sunscreens, the aim is to combine the ingredients in such a way that a marketable and profitable product is created. The product should be as cost-effective as possible and adhere to specifications relevant for a target market. In a complex product development process, several properties should be achieved, for example, durable, heat-resistant and waterproof at the same time. Some of these properties may be in conflict with each other. It would be conceivable to have a product that is more durable but less waterproof. Another trade-off could be between yield and quality. In other words, there can be many conflicting goals in product development and compromises must be made.

To find a compromise between conflicting properties, companies can resort to trial-and-error through experimentation. This is usually inefficient and delays time-to-market. At the same time, a trial-and-error approach can never reliably find the optimum between different possibilities.

Decision Support Tool Qritos Finds the Right Solutions

The workflow we have implemented in our Qritos tool addresses all of the above challenges. It is a multi-criteria decision support system that ultimately provides designers with a deep understanding of the product being developed. The data-driven approach directly enables well-informed and optimal decisions about the final product composition. Through a web interface, product designers operate our mathematical tools of multi-criteria decision support and can be assured that no solution is overlooked.

Our Project Partner

BASF SE, Ludwigshafen

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In the online seminar, Lukas Niemeier, Digital Business Advisory in BASF's »Digitalization of Businesses & Services« unit, gives an introduction to Qritos.