We are already fully immersed into our 2nd ICP project. My team is working on an assignment for a leading company in the chemical industry. Our first reaction to the project was: “Sabbia, do we have just 4 weeks to solve the “carbon fiber challenge”? ”.
Since the beginning we realized that there was no time to lose! The excellent work done by our classmates during the 1st phase of the project (ICP 1) was extremely helpful to set the stage. The previousteam has analyzed in a very detailed manner, the market potential and the what it taked to compete in the carbon fiber industry. Now our assignment goes further! We are developing a strategy that will make our customer a market leader in the carbon fiber industry!
The amount of carbon fiber used in in the automotive is still small and is limited to racecars, supercars and high-end luxury vehicles. Nevertheless, recent alliances among carbon fiber suppliers, resin suppliers and automakers in response to rising cost of fuel and carbon-emissions regulations are driving the adoption of ultralight-weighted carbon fiber composites in high volume passenger cars. According to the previous team’s report, the global Carbon Fiber market is forecasted to have an amazing annual growth rate of 15% over the next ten years! Do you see now what a huge opportunity for our client?
We started the project in the best way possible! Last Monday, just after the kick-off meeting with the client, we, all six members of the team, flew to London to participate to a 3-day “GOCarbonFibre 2012” conference. Thanks to this event we were able to understand quickly the entire manufacturing process and the major challenges that the CF industry is facing today. All the main players, such as Volkswagen, Toyota and Dow were present at the conference. Thanks to all the speakers and many talented researchers, we got very useful insights for our project. We are very thankful for their great contribution!
The learning opportunity is tremendous. Now we are back to IMD and spent the weekend preparing our first customer presentation. Next Wednesday (October 10) we will meet in Zurich the Chief Executive Officer of our client! We are looking forward to presenting him our preliminary findings. Wish us thebest luck for this very important meeting!
Team members: Alessio Falchi (Italy), Alberto Carlei (Italy), Henri Soila (Finland), Mehmet Yagli (Turkey), Andrey Shapenko (Russia), Xose Diaz (Spain)