E-Bulletin
IN Partnership
Issue 3 - June 2010
Turning Obstacles into Opportunity
Quality control or safety concerns about their products can challenge the reputation of business in today's fiercely competitive marketplace. Partnering with university researchers to solve problems and mitigate risks can help quickly restore credibility with customers and turn a damaging perception into an opportunity to become a proactive industry leader.
For the past four years, the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) has joined with researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to solve problems with storing wood pellets. WPAC needed a way to maintain credibility with customers, particularly in off-shore markets that now consume more than one million tonnes of Canadian pellets annually.
Based on their findings about the effects of certain storage conditions, the partners now lead the world in the development and dissemination of new safety protocols for storing and handling wood pellets. Now, customers see WPAC as an organization that is raising the industry standards and creating a better, safer product because of it. As an added bonus, the Canadian industry is also pioneering new product formulations that could result in safer and higher-energy wood pellets.
"Our credibility in the marketplace was severely hampered by some unfortunate incidents in Europe," explains Staffan Melin, Director of Research for WPAC. "Thanks to our partnership with Jim Lim and his team at UBC, we have more than restored our reputation. We are now considered world leaders in wood pellet off-gassing research and related safety standards—this would not have been possible without the support of NSERC."
Share your story
Have an NSERC R&D Partnership success story to share? Please send a brief summary to editor@NSERCPartnerships.ca.
Contact Us
For more information about NSERC’s partnerships programs and how your business can become involved and benefit, please call toll free at 1-877-767-1767. You will be connected to a representative in one of our five regional offices who can assist you.
