BIRMINGHAM, Ohio- Officials with Bettcher Industries welcomed the media and other visitors to its new Bettcher Innovation Center (BIC) located at its corporate headquarters near Cleveland, Ohio. The BIC will enable the company to conduct conceptual testing, demonstrations and collaboration with its customers, business partners and employees. The BIC consists of three key sections: a test kitchen, a demo lab and a collaboration area. The commercial-grade test kitchen utilizes industrial appliances and equipment for prepping, cooking and testing food products.
The demo lab incorporates workbenches, writing boards, and space for video and photography shoots. It serves as a space for activities involving current and future equipment and tools. It is equipped to handle wet application testing and to support product testing and training.
The collaboration space utilizes innovative office furniture and internet and technology integration to support brainstorming, research gathering and ideation sessions for small groups to improve meeting productivity.
The hallway leading into the BIC pays provides snapshots of the company’s history with vintage brochures and advertisements from the past 70 years.
“The BIC is designed to serve the practical needs of today’s employee-owner and the businesses we currently serve, while also lending a mind’s eye to future ideas and opportunities,” said Paul Pirozzola, vice president of marketing.
“The new Center allows us to honor the innovative spirit of our founders and their past inventions – and draw on them for inspiration. Our products have been category creators in the markets we have served. We expect to draw on this legacy of success and pioneering to inspire us to be unique and to create value for our future customers,” Pirozzola added.
All of Bettcher’s employees will use the Innovation Center in the future, but R&D, engineering, and sales and marketing will likely utilize the new facility most due to the customer-focused nature of their activities.
Beta testing on finished products used to confirm performance and marketing claims will also take place at the BIC, along with new product launch training for Bettcher’s worldwide distributor personnel.
CEO, Don Esch, said the BIC represents just one part of many facility improvements to the Birmingham, Ohio, campus.
“In addition to opening the Innovation Center, we have completed a new employee Work Café along with renovating several office spaces within the original Bettcher headquarters building,” Esch said. “These improvements mean that our entire headquarters property – encompassing the original 1971 structure and the later 2008 building — is equally state-of-the-art in terms of facilities, communications, connectivity and other amenities.”