Building Plants

The Dutch firm DSM is now more than one hundred years old. Over its long history, DSM developed from coal mining and coke production to a diversified, international chemical company and became one of the leading Dutch multinationals. Industrial research played an important role in this transformation. DSM's research laboratory was one of the largest in the Netherlands. However, there were also other means to appropriate the technology that was necessary to manufacture products. In some sectors of the chemical industry, there was a market for technology in which companies bought and sold technologies in various forms and in various ways. This book tries to analyse why and how DSM used this market and in which cases the company used its internal resources. It does so by following the engineering and construction of new plants and the expansion of existing installations. In this way, it becomes possible to analyse the market for technology as well as in-house capabilities. The book focuses on DSM's nitrogen fertiliser business between 1925 and 1970, a period in which fertilisers formed an important pillar of the company.