As the world`s largest independent research organization, the Battelle Memorial Institute here has developed virtually something for everyone.
For gourmets: A mustard mousse created by the institute`s researchers in its Geneva laboratories for the French food industry.
For golfers: The plastic coating on a golf ball that prevents the cover from splitting.
For fat-fingered typists: The quick-drying white opaque fluid used to mask mistakes.
For divers: The electric underwater hand tool that performs a multitude of tasks.
For shoppers: The machine-readable codes that speed passage through grocery checkout counters.
For all of us: The copper and nickel alloy sandwich that makes up many U.S. coins.
Battelle researchers helped develop each of these products.
”We see technology and the application of it to a variety of fields as important to the quality of life,” said Dr. Douglas Olesen, the institute`s chief operating officer.
”The key is the ability to move technology into the world economy. The rate at which technology is developed is increasing. And there will be a great premium placed on moving technology from the laboratory into the marketplace.”
Here, on a beautifully landscaped 50-acre site in Ohio`s capital, Olesen oversees several thousand of the nation`s brightest brains. The institute, with a staff of 8,100, marshals its resources on 3,308 contracts with 1,821 private and governmental clients throughout the world.
The center is little known outside the scientific and industrial communities. But every year, 80 to 100 patents are obtained on inventions by some of the staff members who work in relative anonymity at this research and development complex.
Through their work for private industry and governments in more than 40 countries, the institute`s researchers and engineers have contributed to tremendous advances in science and manufacturing since the center`s founding nearly 58 years ago.
Staff members at 27 locations throughout the world originate ideas on their own and work on technology developed by others to help prepare it for introduction in the marketplace.
Thus, when Chester Carlson, a New York patent attorney conceived the idea for an electronic copier machine in the 1930s, it was a Battelle research team that found ways to commercialize the product a decade later.
By the 1960s, the Xerox Corp. and xerography, the ability to create copies with the mere push of a button, was well on the way to creating a multinational, multibillion dollar industry.
People here like to tell that story as one of the institute`s proudest accomplishments.
However, thousands of other projects that have moved through the laboratories here and at Battelle installations throughout the U.S., Western Europe and the Far East have scored similarly significant advances in such diverse fields as manufacturing, electronics, medicine, pharmaceuticals and even recreation.
Researchers are helping the National Aeronautics and Space Administration design and implement a safety reporting system so the agency`s 100,000 employees can confidentially report safety concerns that might prevent another Challenger disaster.
At the same time, they are developing software programs to enhance the efficiency and cost effectiveness of small entrepreneurs and genetically engineered drugs. Another high priority is creating tamper-evident packaging to safeguard food products and drugs.
About half of the institute`s staffers work here at the sprawling, campus-like setting across the street from Ohio State University.
Some firms, such as General Motors Corp., have larger research organizations, but they are captive to their corporate work, said George B. Johnson, Battelle`s vice president for business development.
”We have no corporate allegiance,” he said. ”We`re free to serve anyone.”
Last year, the institute did more than $579 million in business.
And though it is chartered under Ohio state law as a nonprofit charitable trust, the institute paid $6.6 million in federal income taxes last year or about 44 percent of its $14.9 million profits.
”We are nonprofit, but we are not tax-exempt,” Johnson said. ”We have no stockholders. No individuals collect dividends.
”Everything we earn is pumped back into equipment, facilities and our own research. Everything, that is, except for the $1 million-a-year the institute donates to various charities.”
Worldwide, 41 governments, including the U.S., accounted for 79 percent, or nearly $459 million, of Battelle`s business last year. Uncle Sam accounted for $435 million, Johnson said. Industrial clients signed up for more than $120 million.
”We`re big in government work because it contracts out 65 percent of its research and development to universities and other centers,” said Johnson.
”Private industry spends more for R&D than the government, but only contracts out about 3 percent of its work.”
According to Jim R. Hunkler, an institute spokesman, Battelle does a lot of research for the Federal Aviation Administration and the Departments of Energy, Defense and Health and Human Services and especially for the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
Battelle is forecasting that R&D expenditures in the U.S. will total $127.4 billion this year, an increase of about 7.4 percent from 1986. Of that, an estimated $59.5 billion will be in federal spending.
”We`re trying to encourage private industry to contract out more R&D,”
Johnson said. ”We`re not concerned with who will get the work because we think we`ll get our share.”
Officials here believe that industry will be contracting out more of its research to cut costs, particularly because mergers have created many duplicate R&D facilities. Some firms are entering joint ventures with other companies through the institute.
As many as 20 firms are sharing in the research of ”team” efforts initiated by Battelle.
A multiclient study by the auto industry, for example, is exploring the use of adhesives for bonding metal and plastic parts as a substitute for rivets, screws and welding.
”These are cases where companies see the value of joint participation, projects that put them in the forefront of new technology which they later can pursue on their own or through Battelle,” Hunkler said.
”It`s very cost effective,” Johnson said. ”And we structure the research to meet individual corporate needs.”
The institute conducts research in about 40 to 50 disciplines. About half of the customers want help in developing an idea or solving a problem. The other half are firms that have been approached by the institute`s marketing staff with ideas developed by Battelle.
”We`re also technology transfer agents,” Johnson said.
In seeking government business, Battelle must compete with other research organizations.
”It is a very strict bidding process involving huge proposals that can cost as much as $1 million and take as much as a year to prepare,” Johnson said.
”A lot of people think the federal government just calls up Battelle and sends us money. No way! Getting that business is very competitive.”
The institute was the brainchild of Gordon Battelle, an Ohio industrialist whose family had been steel pioneers.
Battelle, who died in 1923, recognized the value of applied research and provided $1.5 million in his will to create the institute as a memorial to his family. That sum increased to about $3.5 million with a bequest by his mother, who died two years later.
In October, 1929, the Battelle Institute opened here with a staff of 30 on 10 acres.
More than half a century later, the institute remains dedicated to pushing forward the leading edge of high technology. The human equation, however, is not forgotten.
”With the robot revolution of the last 10 years, everybody at first wanted robots, usually for jobs that nobody wanted, like spray painting and welding in severe environments,” said Jim Sorenson, senior vice president for manufacturing and advanced materials.
”But there are some applications where it doesn`t make sense economically to replace people with machines–with a capital investment that couldn`t be economically feasible.”
Sorenson denounces predictions that the United States will become a service-oriented economy.
”After we wash each other`s clothes and cut each other`s hair, what are we gonna do?” he asked.
”There must be more attention paid to how to utilize technology to maintain a viable manufacturing base in the United States.
”Our role is to bring back offshore manufacturing through the adaptation of today`s technology. We can increase jobs by redesigning production lines to increase capacity. Modern technology can preserve jobs while making processes more profitable.”
