Our philosophy on innovation is both to incrementally improve our products by introducing new technologies and technical tools to enhance them, as well as radical shifts where we bring transformational solutions to the market. A balance between this has been a successful approach, to assure that our customers quickly get access to new improvements and that we also thoroughly test, and quality assure the radically new solutions.
A good example of radical technology shifts and transformational solutions is the SeaQuantum technology. At the end of the last millennium, the long-standing TBT antifouling coatings were regulated and banned from use, and the industry was looking for an efficient and reliable alternative. Anticipating this, Jotun had worked on alternatives for a long time and had data and experience to introduce the silyl(meth)acrylate technology into the market. The results speak for themselves, and still – more than 20 years later – these products are still performing at the top of their game and providing the shipping industry with the ultimate performance. Starting off as a radical technology shift, this has later shifted to an incremental evolution of the product platform, where new variants with improved performance or properties are regularly introduced.
The technology shift spurred by the SeaQuantum products also represents the start of an expanded view to our contribution to the industry. Through the Hull Performance solution, the high performing products were combined with monitoring methodology to provide clear evidence of the performance of the vessels. Not only did the customers gain insight into the actual performance of their vessels, but this also raised the awareness across the industry of the importance of keeping hulls clean. For our customers the initial main benefits of the Hull Performance Solutions was the fuel savings, and this has later been further extended to also comprise the avoided emissions through a more effective operation.
