ELECTRIC.IE • The Magazine & Website for the Irish Electrical Industry • 49 When a brand name serves as a general designation for a product, that is a mark of distinction for the manufacturer. In a restaurant, no one orders a caffeinated soft drink, but rather a… right, the beverage in the famous red-and-white bottle. Mersen EP even has such products in the company’s portfolio. “No one says, I need a small but powerful surge protector – everyone simply says TPMOV,” explains JeanFrançois de Palma, Head of Research & Development at Mersen SPM (Solutions for Power Management). And does anyone ask for a semiconductor protection fuse? No! I need a Protistor or an uR fuse. TPMOV, Protistor, Mersen aR fuse, AmpTrap fuse and many others are legacy products developed by Mersen EP during its long history and that of the predecessor company, which was established in Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA and Lyon, France. Other examples are but not limited to: Infini-Cell EV bus bar for Lithium Ion cell, IsoMAXX high efficient cooling device for semiconductors, aBat DC fuses for the protection of the Energy Storage installation, as well as various types of Power Electronic low inductance laminated bus bars, which meanwhile are among the company’s flagship products. 18 R&D centers worldwide Mersen group operates 18 R&D centres around the Mersen - A hallmark of excellence ർElectrical engineering specialist Mersen EP has earned a reputation as an innovative enterprise with a strong commitment to research & development. The payoff: In some cases, the brand name of the product has become a synonym for the product itself. world and invests in research & development three to four percent of its annual revenue totalling approximately one billion euros. Mersen group has five business Units. Two of them belong to Mersen EP, Electrical Power, i.e. SPM (Solutions for Power Management) and EPC (Electrical Power & Control). “EP R&D team is about 55 employees,” says Jean-François de Palma. Jean-François is an old hand and has been working in Research & Development at Mersen since 1991. “We have an extensive team in Saint Bonnet near Lyon, a large team in China and a smaller one in the USA,” he explains. What is the main priority of his team? “Answering the needs of the customer,” Jean-François emphasizes. “For new product development project we strive to understand the customer’s need, market requirements, instead of simply offering a solution that already exists. That is why I always urge my team to visit the customer and to work together with the sales or application team. The more we learn about the customer’s needs, the better is the solution we are able to offer. The TPMOV, for example, was developed in response to a customer fuse requirement and we ended-up developing an overvoltage device.” Ideas are retained and checked for feasibility Mersen EP’s team works intensively to present new ideas, whether for products or processes. This is achieved by using the stage-gate model, in which the innovation/ development process is subdivided into several stages. The results of each stage are then verified in a milestone analysis. “First, we have the idea Milestone product: Infini-Cell busbars not only connect battery cells in a space-saving manner, but also monitor temperature and voltage. Laminated busbars have now become one of Mersen's flagship products. Industry News Industry News
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