Pentair’s Thermal Building Solutions reached the finish line of its marking Raychem’s 40-year anniversary with a final Formula E race in London in June.

“The thought behind Raychem’s anniversary was to celebrate the past, embrace the future and share innovative ideas with the customers,” says Valerie Dillen, global marketing communications manager, Thermal Building Solutions. “Formula E is a revolutionary concept, as self-regulating technology was 40 years ago. Therefore, we decided to match these events together to create an electrifying and engaging campaign for our users.”

As part of this initiative, Pentair also invited customers, installers, engineers and distributors to submit their bright ideas to Open Innovation Awards to make Raychem products even easier to use. A large number of suggestions were submitted, from which only five were shortlisted. The winner, Francisco Saavedra from GA Fleet New York, was rewarded with a cheque for $3,500 for presenting his ideas to test new HWAT installations. Its simplicity and ingenuity impressed the judging panel, and the next step will be to investigate this proposal further in Pentair’s Technology & Product Management groups.