Bühler opens CHF 50 million innovation campus

23 May 2019

After a construction period of 20 months and an investment of about CHF 50 million, Bühler Group has officially opened its CUBIC innovation campus with eight Application Centers.

“We are with this driving forward our strategy of innovation, training, and development,” said Stefan Scheiber, CEO of Bühler Group. “Together with our customers, partners from industry and science, academia, and start-ups, we are using the CUBIC to conduct research into new and sustainable solutions that we can apply to successful business ventures. And, we are taking a step forward here in providing modern training and development.”

The global challenges associated with nutrition and mobility are becoming increasingly urgent, says Bühler, asking how can we sustainably feed and provide mobility for a population of nearly 10 billion in 2050? Addressing these issues and responding to them with sustainable, commercially attractive solutions is the goal of the innovation campus.

“This is our contribution to transforming the urgent global challenges of our time into solid business solutions together with customers, partners, academia, and start-ups,” said Scheiber. “In this campus, we are also promoting new professional skills and competencies, modern learning and working methods, and collaborating with our partners.”

Every year, the company says it invests a sum in the three-digit millions in research and development (R&D). In 2018, this amounted to CHF 145 million or 4.4% of turnover.

The three-story CUBIC is designed to accommodate up to 300 people, and is described as a model of sustainability and innovation. The building uses 15% less energy than comparable structures of its size. Its smart electrochromic glass facade was coated with equipment from Bühler Leybold Optics. This enables Bühler to slash energy consumption for heating and air-conditioning by as much as 50%. Building sensors measure carbon dioxide levels, air humidity, temperature, and flow of people to continuously fine-tune the functionality and energy consumption of the CUBIC. On the basis of this smart building concept, Bühler says it expects to be able to sustainably optimize the operation of the building. The CUBIC complies with the LEED sustainability standard, which certified the structure by awarding it a gold rating.

In terms of its design concept, the new innovation campus is integrated into the Bühler site in Uzwil as the bridge that links the development, engineering, and design teams with the modernized Application Centers and the factory. This enables Bühler to develop solutions together with customers, start-ups, and industry and research partners up to the point of market maturity with much higher speed and efficiency. The CUBIC represents Bühler’s purpose of “Innovations for a better world” and it focuses on promoting new training and development methods. Among other things, it embraces the dual education system of Switzerland, housing apprentices and academics, as well as youth and experience.

“The CUBIC campus will become the epicenter of our collaborative ecosystem,” said CTO Ian Roberts. “It embodies our innovation spirit and culture, where we will inspire, discuss, understand, and derive actions that will support us as an industry to create more sustainable value chains, while contributing to addressing the burning environmental and societal challenges of our time.”

Vital elements of the new innovation campus are its eight modernized Application Centers. The ideas of customers and prototypes are tested in the Application Centers, where they are refined up to the point of market maturity.

In the Pasta Application Center, the latest pasta is being developed, for example high-protein pasta containing flour from pulses or products with a proportion of microalgae. The Grain Technology Center, at 3,000 square meters, is the world’s largest Grain Milling Application Center. It also has its own Analytics Lab. Among other things, the Nutrition Application Center develops textured vegetable proteins –alternatives for the growing number of flexitarians. Together with customers, the Bakery Innovation Center develops wholesome, fresh bakery products.

In the Chocolate Application Center, new flavours and novel processes for cocoa-based products are tested. In the Coffee Application Center, customers test low-energy roasting processes to develop new taste variants.

The CUBIC and the Application Centers will be presented to Bühler’s partners from industry and academia on the occasion of the Bühler Networking Days 2019. On August 26 and 27, 2019, Bühler expects to welcome nearly 800 guests from process industries around the world to this event.