About Our Workflow
Recently we had an interesting discussion regarding our company and our working methodology. The main two questions were: 1. How can you work on many different fields and 2. If you are so smart, why do I have to pay you for a literature survey? - Give me the solution and give it now!
To answer these questions, I have to provide some background on our approach to a new project. Upon initiation of a new project, we “translate” the problem of our customer to the “materials language”. For example, if you have a problem with optical transparency of your product, it is probably a result of submicron (or larger) irregularities, with a minimal typical size of about 40 nm. Once the problem is translated, we have to identify the corresponding physical or chemical mechanism that lead to this result. And finally suggest several approaches to resolve the issue.
The two main skills of SciMAP in the mentioned above workflow are first of all the knowledge of “materials language” and ability to connect theory to reality. This allows us to diagnose the problem with a good accuracy and define possible solution paths. Working on different projects, with different customers enriches our language from day to day. Moreover, we recognize similarities between different disciplines and can employ solutions from different fields. For example, one of our customers is a leading Israeli pharmacy company. During the project, we noticed that many terms are similar to the terms that we know from our prior experience with ceramics for armor applications. Armor and pharmacy use same basic language- who would guess?
The initial diagnosis provides us a good direction. Yet, the devil is in small details. To provide you the solution, we must get into these small details. The literature survey is important not only to get updated about recent developments. But, not less important it helps us to support our initial diagnosis and steer with our customers toward what we identify as the best solution among other possibilities.
To summarize, the main product that you get when you sign a contract with SciMAP is composed of our prior experience, creativity and ability to interconnect different disciplines. Our progress from project to project provides us a lot of flexibility. Yet, we are not alchemists nor magicians. Therefore, in most cases, a well identified workflow path has to be followed.