Joaquin Piquet: ceramic visionary

Occasionally at Tile Addict we like to shine a spotlight on individuals who have had a profound effect on our sector, yet remain largely unknown and unacknowledged. Today it is the turn of Spanish entrepreneur Joaquin Piquet. He has recently written a very insightful article for Vigilancer (reprinted in full below) that provides a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the instigators of the aesthetic and technical innovations that have revolutionised the ceramic sector over the past few decades. Tile Addict hopes that you find his views as fascinating and thought provoking as we do.

At the end of the 90s, I was responsible for R&D at Cerdec Iberica, the ceramic subsidiary of the Degussa company. At that time, I visited Frankfurt to learn about electrostatic enamelling. When I arrived at our factory in Germany, I was shocked to see a large frit melting plant with all its furnaces stopped and control laboratories empty. Where was your production? At our Nules facilities. The reason for all this was not because we were prettier or smarter, we were cheaper. Shortly after, I was part of a very small and confidential group, to bring the frits from Italy and close their fusion plants. The reason was the same; cost. These two events impacted me so much that in 2004 I decided to leave the sector. For personal reasons I returned, but with the intention of looking for innovative products, founding Neos Cerámica & Comunicación, parent company of Neos Additives.

During the last fifteen years, Neos has been awarded five Alfa de Oro awards. In four of them, it has participated as the main research company. Ecoker (2008), formulation of a porcelain paste with firing for 27 minutes at normal working temperature. Thousands of square meters were manufactured, but the 2008 crisis made further production unnecessary. Ceilook (2015), ceramic roofs with a density close to water, vapor permeable and durable over time (www.ceilook.com ). NeosAware (2017), first artificial intelligence software for the formulation of ceramic compositions. Klusss (2020) ceramic flooring with the same capacity to absorb sound as carpets. All spectacular products and, some of them, like NeosAware, ahead of their time. In 2023 the buzzword was Artificial Intelligence. In 2017 the majority of technicians did not know what it meant and saw it as a threat to their jobs, as well as a tool of little use when they had their Excel and their experience, with those who “believed they had everything under control.”

In addition to these products, Neos has developed others as disruptive as those exposed, but, for reasons of confidentiality, we will remain in the shadows and their exploitation is at the hands of third parties.

Innovating has a lot of risk, it involves a great economic effort and an opportunity cost. While you are focused on new developments, your competition is becoming stronger in your market with the development and sale of traditional products. If you fail, you have lost money, but mainly, you have given your competition time to eat your cake.

For this reason, I have been configuring a series of principles based on my personal experiences, these are some of them:

You must always develop products with a known legal framework. It is a simple principle, but one that some disruptive products do not comply with. We live in a regulated society, where prescribers and distributors are risk-averse, and everyone wants to limit their liability.

Patents are a luxury product. It would only justify patenting those very innovative products with a quick return on investment. If the time from the laboratory to the sale is prolonged, the costs of patenting grow exponentially and, if the option is to give up, you have given an advantage to your competitors.

You always have to master the production system and the sales channel. If your company does not master these fields, better reconsider a new development. Looking for partners to complement has the risk that the partner loses productive capacity or that, at the end of development, his or her interests are not aligned with the new product.

At the beginning of my career, I considered knowledge as the most important aspect of technicians. Now, over time, what makes people achieve their goals is not only knowledge, the most important thing is attitude. It is explained in human resources books, and it is a great truth.

To undertake innovative developments, we must look for people with ‘spark’ and initiative. There are researchers who are able to see oceans in the desert and others simply analyze the sand. The former will look for innovative solutions outside the box, the latter will focus on their acquired knowledge. The former will release innovative products and the latter will tell you that the product cannot be obtained or its proposal is conventional without adding value. This ‘spark’ is independent of grades or qualifications and its identification in job interviews is very complicated.

A technician with a limited number of raw materials, in a known development framework and with time, based on trial and error, obtains a solution close to an optimal one, even though it costs more time and the proposal is not the best. However, if you are faced with a development in which you do not know if there is a solution, with hundreds or thousands of raw materials and possible reactions, Artificial Intelligence is a great work companion. It shows you the threads through which to advance to the summit. Without its use, many of our developments would have been impossible to undertake. Therefore, our evolution at NeosAware has been constant.

With these principles I have focused on product development, but innovating extends to all areas of the company.

At this time, where products manufactured in countries with lower costs and substitute products for ceramics are threatening our production, innovation is a necessity, but it entails a very high risk that companies must assess before undertaking, either internally or by subcontracting the development externally.