Build better batteries: Part 4

In battery materials and cell manufacturing, as well as battery recycling facilities, project failure rarely announces itself. It builds slowly, layer by layer, through missed steps, untested assumptions, and under-resourced decisions. A coating line runs off-spec before anyone notices. A formation step yields inconsistent results because upstream slurry shifted slightly. A commissioning milestone is met on paper, but without trained operators or a functioning quality system to support it. Most projects don’t collapse from a single catastrophic mistake; they degrade under the weight of cumulative risk. The most effective way to mitigate collapse is with robust operational readiness rooted in exceptional design.  

In Episode 4 of Build Better Batteries, host Tolu Aribisala sits down with Duarte Dorego Hatch’s Operational Readiness Specialist to unpack one of the most underestimated aspects of battery materials, cell manufacturing, and recycling projects: how cumulative risk can quietly derail an otherwise well-designed facility. 

The point at which all your planning, equipment, systems, and people must come together to make a product at scale, on spec, and on time requires more than sound design and construction. It demands well-trained operators, effective systems, and robust support infrastructure. It’s the bridge between a finished facility and one that produces battery products consistently, safely, and profitably. 

It’s more than installation. It’s more than a startup checklist. It’s people, processes, and systems working in alignment before the first slurry is mixed or the first cell is formed. 
 
In high-performing facilities, operational readiness is a structured, continuous process: 

• Operators are masters of context, risk response, and quality tolerances. They also inform design.
• Equipment is qualified and integrated to the specific process requirements of the chemistry and format.
• Systems and tools are operational, stress-tested, and staffed.
• Maintenance is woven into processes to minimize disruption. 

Underperforming facilities, by contrast: 

• Operators learn on the job. In the absence of intuition, mistakes are frequent, and diagnostics come too late.
• Process steps aren’t in sync, creating rework or rejects.
• Control systems are reactive, not predictive, and preventative maintenance strategies are lacking. 

The result is delay, scrap, and in some cases, complete process and plant re-engineering after capital has been spent. 

Integration is the game 

Each step of the manufacturing process has a narrow tolerance window, especially for high-nickel cathodes, silicon-rich anodes, or advanced solid-state chemistries. In a typical facility, there are thousands of process dependencies, each with a risk profile and failure mode. This isn’t just technical nuance, it’s operational exposure:

• Roller hearth kiln conditions need to be precise to ensure material is homogeneously crystallized, which impacts cell performance.
• Purification and washing steps need to work effectively to remove performance-sensitive impurities, which prolongs battery life.
• Mixing precision directly impacts slurry uniformity, which informs coating consistency.
• Drying conditions must be tuned to minimize solvent retention, which affects electrode porosity and mechanical behavior during calendaring.
• Formation profiles must reflect actual cell characteristics, which depend on tight process control upstream. 

Integration requires an understanding of every dependency and managing them in real time. It requires continuous reassessment embedded at every level. 

Copy/paste 

We’ve seen the risks of assuming that a proven design in Asia can be replicated without proper modification in the U.S. or Europe. The infrastructure, workforce, regulations, and supply chain context are different, and they matter. 

In copy/paste facilities: 

• Local operators lack the training or experience to handle nuanced process steps.
• Equipment tuning is based on outdated or mismatched assumptions.
• Support infrastructure is incomplete or misaligned.
• Codes are not met, resulting in start up delays. 

These plants often spend years chasing stability, adjusting for decisions that should have been addressed pre-commissioning. Meanwhile, well-adapted facilities those with rigorous planning and localized execution hit performance milestones months, or even years, ahead. The impact of bringing revenue ahead of schedule on the Net Present Value of a project is remarkable, and almost always exceeds any capital and/or operating cost optimizations. 
 
Continuous planning, with the discipline to reassess every time the inputs change, results in a robust execution model. This starts with: 

Step-wise sequencing. What’s the logical order of work? What gates must be passed before the next task begins? 
 
Data readiness. What do we need to know to proceed? Is our process design validated at this scale? 
 
Resource alignment. Do we have the skilled labor, test capacity, and equipment to support the schedule? 
 
Dependency mapping. What does this step feed? What is it fed by? What happens if one piece slips? 

In other words: the right work, in the right sequence, at the right time. 
 
The truth about operational readiness 

Battery facilities are notoriously slow to ramp up; most plants take 3 to 6 years to reach full, profitable production. 

The delay is rarely due to one big mistake. It’s the cumulative weight of assumptions:  

• That materials will behave the same at scale.
• That equipment tolerances will match design specs.
• That operators will perform flawlessly from day one.
• That change orders won’t compound into chaos. 

Each assumption narrows your margin. And when you’re operating with just a 15-20% efficiency window between breakeven and failure, small deviations matter. Worse, when the pressure to hit schedule overtakes process discipline, those assumptions turn into liabilities. Every rushed decision, every skipped validation, every missed training accumulates risk until it’s no longer manageable. 

What sets us apart 

Risk doesn’t just appear. It builds. And when the full system comes online, those hidden gaps become visible all at once. 

• Plan early and adjust continuously.
• Build the schedule around readiness, not just delivery dates.
• Prioritize understanding over speed.
• Accept that perfection isn’t achievable—but informed, accountable tradeoffs are.
• Consider variability and the flexibility needed to thrive. 

Battery manufacturing isn’t a race. It’s a system test with tens of thousands of interdependent variables that must converge with precision.