Added: 15th January 2024 by Cytiva
After 20 years of working in chromatography, I’m still exploring new ideas. And sometimes a casual curiosity leads to a major innovation—especially when innovation is constantly encouraged.
A few summers ago, in 2019, I was supervising a summer associate in our Custom Designed Media (CDM) division here in Uppsala. The CDM team uses various tools and chemical techniques to craft tailor-made solutions for customers when the standard chromatography resins don’t work for them. And then when we’re done, we need to wash away residual chemicals.
That requires a lot of water, buffers and solvent—which means that our plant basically is a very big washing machine. And everyone knows that washing several times with less water is more efficient than a few times with a lot of water.
I’d been wondering for some time whether we needed to use so much water, and when the summer associate needed a project to work on, I decided it was time to experiment. Initial tests showed that washing with less water didn’t affect the functionality of the final product, and so some of my colleagues encouraged me to submit my idea to Cytiva’s Innovation Accelerator challenge, which had asked for ideas focused on sustainability initiatives.
I didn’t know much about the program—I thought maybe I’d get feedback on whether to continue testing or not. But then my idea was one of the final six to be selected. For the next several weeks, I took part in a very intense but very fun ‘bootcamp’ process: We developed more efficient chemical and water washing processes in our resin production.
We also changed the mindset for future development work to support the sustainability of Cytiva operations. I had to build a cross-functional team with people from R&D, Marketing and Production. There was even an internal broadcast, where we had to pitch the idea to members of the Cytiva leadership team and the head of the sustainability program to get funding.
Our changes didn’t affect the product quality, which of course is very important for customers who use our products in regulated pharmaceutical production. We ended up saving more than just water. When we reduced the amount of liquid, we also could reduce chemicals like acetic acid and ethanol in our synthesis methods.
And when we use fewer liquids in our equipment, the capacity increases and improves the supply of important materials. This meant we could delay capacity investment in product equipment and produce more of the popular products with existing equipment. It also relieves the wastewater plant that handles our waste streams. It’s really a win-win situation—what's good for the planet and our customers is also good for the business. Sustainability is our daily routine as it is always at the core of what we do. All the time. Every day.
So far, we’ve been able to make related changes in more than a dozen existing processes, which has saved over 230 tons of chemicals, over 250 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and 2000 cubic meters of water in just about 10 months.
Continuous improvement has always been important to me, and innovation is part of the culture here—from the Danaher Business System and to the way upper management supports experimentation. We make mistakes all the time, but we learn from them, and everyone understands that’s part of the process. The emphasis on innovation is one reason I’m still excited about my job after two decades.
I’ve recently moved into a new role as Staff Development Engineer, where I have the opportunity to coach new associates. They come with a fresh mindset, and they might have ideas we haven’t thought of. I think it’s so important to listen to new and maybe less-experienced people, because they have a different set of eyes on the problem. That’s really the best way of doing innovation—together.
