1 //Dr. Lärmer, how does Bosch promote innovativeness?
An important point is consistency. Investments in research and development are constantly at a high level. One of Bosch’s strengths is that the company has a long-term orientation and is patient when it comes to forward-looking developments. Part of the company culture is to enable ideas to mature, and to show trust in the developer in advance.
2 //What features are necessary for your work?
As an advance developer, I work in new application fields for microsystems technology. This demands a broad overview and the willingness to look into more or less related fields. Once I have decided on something, I stay with it. But even at Bosch, innovation is no picnic, so to speak. Ideas are in a productive competition with one another. You have to withstand this and fight for your approach to the solution.
3 //How is the process of idea management steered?
Bosch, like many other companies, has an innovation process for ideas. But that process does not replace feeling, intuition, that is to say, the capacity to recognize a really good idea which deserves to be explored. There is no process that has an idea at the beginning and a product at the end. To get there, you always need a protagonist who fights for the ideas and overcomes resistance, so that after five to seven years the outcome is a successful product.
4 //You had the right intuition when it came to the procedures for producing microsensors.
When we started with the development in 1990, the challenge almost seemed technologically impossible. What was clear however, was that if it functioned, it would revolutionize microsystems technology. Perseverance paid off, despite initial resistance and a lot of setbacks in the first two years. When the development began to look promising, it then became important for colleagues to implement the technology and sensor developments in their business fields so as to ensure success for products like the airbag and the ESP electronic stability program.
5 // Today your process is known as the “Bosch Process” and has become vital part of microsystems technology. Did you anticipate this?
Normally developments in the semi-conductor industry are out of date after five years and are then usually replaced by superior solutions. So I was surprised that after 20 years the Bosch Process is still a standard in the field of microsystems technology. But it is a technology that can be used everywhere, from automobile electronics to medical technology and air and space travel. The potential is enormous.
Personal data
Dr. Franz Lärmer has been working in the research and development centre of the Bosch Group since 1990. The physicist is the co-inventor of the so-called “Bosch Process”. The plasma etching process for micro-mechanical modules revolutionized microsystems technology. For this trail blazing process he and a female colleague of his received the 2007 European Inventor Award.
The Bosch Concern in Stuttgart has developed from being the “Werkstatt für Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik” founded by Robert Bosch in 1886 to become a leading international technology and service company. In 2009, the almost 275,000 employees earned a turnover of 38.2 billion euros with motor vehicle and industrial technology, consumer goods and buildings technology. That same year, the company invested 3.5 billion euros worldwide in research and development and registered 3,800 patents.
www.bosch.de
