Resources
Writing on R&D strategy, decision-grade data, scalable automation and analytics—each supporting a more connected path to R&D impact.
Resource library
What “Digital” Actually Means in R&D
The layers behind the word—infrastructure, data, automation, and governance—so leadership teams stop planning against three different definitions at once.
What It Actually Takes to Build Predictive Models in R&D
A six-stage data cycle—and why preservation, access, and re-use, not analysis skill, are what usually block recommender engines and in-silico screening.
Augmend: Automating Data You'd Otherwise Re-key by Hand
Notes from building a tool that populates databases automatically and extracts usable data from documents that were not built for it.
From Messy Lab Notes to Structured R&D Data
What it actually takes to turn inconsistent, narrative lab records into usable, structured data—worked through on five real examples.
Why Historical R&D Data Stays Locked Up
Why digitised notes still fail FAIR, and how LLMs can structure historical “dark data” after the fact—so teams stop repeating experiments they have already run.
From Narrative Lab Records to Quantitative Data
A live walkthrough of Augmend extracting structured results from shampoo-lab write-ups and pilot records—equipment IDs, material usage, and variable mapping into Excel.
Stop Manual PLM Data Entry
How Augmend extracts parts, materials, and product specs from unstructured documents and loads them into your PLM—so the system becomes usable without the re-keying overhead.
Digitize, Aggregate, Analyze: A Mantra to Step Up Product Development
The three-step logic underneath data-driven product development—and where teams often lose the connection between activity and impact.
Out-Innovate Your Competitors with Advanced Analytics
MAPI research with BMNP Strategies and Decodexis on how advanced analytics is reshaping manufacturing innovation—and why most companies still under-resource it.
Process Development Meets Continuous Improvement
Connecting R&D process development with continuous improvement to turn insight into practice.
Why Machine Learning Is Better (Slower Computer)
The case for prediction over brute-force computation—and when it's worth trading raw speed for a smarter model.
The Complete 5-Bucket Guide to Choosing an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)
Five decisions about your own lab—ambition, orientation, compliance, vendor hygiene, and deferrable add-ons—before you talk to ELN vendors.
How to Choose Lab Notebook Software — The One Question That Matters
Three ways an ELN can store your data after you hit save—and the one demo question that reveals which model you are actually buying.
How to Get the Best Out of Your PLM
Why so many PLM systems stay underused—critical data locked in documents—and what changes once extraction into structured fields is automated.
Want FAIR Data? Try Governance
Why governance—not another tool—is what makes data trustworthy enough to build on.
Structured Lab Data: Why FAIR R&D Data Determines How Fast You Innovate
What FAIR actually requires beyond digitisation, shown through two experiments that only reveal their optimum once the data is harmonised.
What Are the Root Causes of Poor Data Quality?
People, process, and systems failures that create bad data—and the three highest-leverage fixes to start with.
How Can AI Improve Data Quality?
Catching and fixing data problems at the source instead of downstream—and why that's cheaper every time it's skipped.
Excel, PowerPoint... and Going Digital
Why so much R&D evidence still lives in spreadsheets and slides—and what useful standardisation actually requires.
Does the Data in Your Database Suck, Big Time?
A blunt, honest look at what "trust the data" actually costs when nobody's been checking it.
What Are Good KPIs for Digital R&D?
Four buckets—input, change, output, and business outcome—and four to six collectible KPIs that show whether an initiative actually worked.
Finding the Sweet Spot for Allocating Innovation Resources
McKinsey research on how much R&D budget top innovators actually reallocate each year—and why both inertia and panic moves miss the mark.
Six Things That Actually Make R&D Digital Transformation Stick
Roadmaps, hub and spoke, domain-plus-digital people, data engineering, on-the-job support, and few big bets—what keeps programmes delivering after launch.
How to Succeed with Digital Change in R&D
Three effort patterns after a digital change—below normal, back to normal, or permanently above—and why recognizing which one you are in changes what you promise.
Holistic Digital Strategy & Transformation Using S.W.I.M.
The framework behind scope-and-strategy work—setting direction before committing budget to tools.
Starting From a Business Problem Won't Get You There
A contrarian take on where digital strategy actually needs to start—and why the obvious starting point usually isn't it.
How to Make Steady Progress With Data: Work Across Three Horizons
A sequencing framework for data investment—use what you have, improve what you have, then create what you don't have yet.