Process Lock-in: Are you Struggling with Innovation?

Innovation Design Matrix

Innovation is taking two or more things that exist (knowledge-blocks), improving them and/or putting them together in a new way while the value of design is in the application. Knowledge-blocks and their links drive innovation, innovation drives manufacturing productivity and manufacturing productivity drives industrial growth. Innovation design knowledge brings about an unrelenting drive to break the existing status and develop anew where few are terrified to venture.

In the manufacturing environment, the reality is that even the most meticulously planned service or flawlessly designed product rarely attains its full potential upon application or production. There's always an opportunity for innovation in design to heighten its benefits, thus perpetuating a cycle of improvement.

The Impact of Innovation Design

1. The Innovation S-Curve:

New ideas hardly ever result in linear progress in performance. Instead, it typically tracks an S-shaped curve. Initially, substantial resources are invested with minimal performance gains, however, as time goes by understanding and experience grows thus performance improves to the point of saturation where further enhancement becomes s challenge. At this stage, a fresh idea is needed to rejuvenate the S-curve. This cyclical nature highlights how innovation design knowledge continually prompts redesign.

1. Incremental Innovation Design vs. Radical Innovation Design:

The extreme ends of the Innovation Design Knowledge Matrix is characterized by two main forms: incremental innovation design, characterized by gradual improvements, and radical innovation design, marked by significantly stark changes. By nature, established manufacturers often prefer incremental innovation, leveraging existing knowledge while in contrast, newcomers may lean towards radical innovation, unfettered by legacy systems.

1. Understanding Innovation Design Knowledge:

Innovation design knowledge involves understanding both individual knowledge-blocks and their interconnections. Incremental innovation design knowledge builds on existing knowledge-blocks and their links, while radical innovation design knowledge redefines both knowledge-blocks and their linkages. Modular innovation design knowledge relies on existing links but introduces new knowledge-blocks, whereas architectural innovation design knowledge alters the linkages while keeping individual knowledge blocks intact.

While manufacturers will aim to surpass customer expectations while ensuring operational feasibility and cost-effectiveness, not all innovations stem from identified customer needs; sometimes, innovation creates demand that customers weren't aware of initially.

There are three Essential Elements of Innovatively Designed Products and Services, they are; one, conceptual clarity, this is the essence, utility, and value of the offering, two, modular elements, this is how knowledge-blocks are packaged in order to deliver defined benefits and three, process optimization, efficient creation and delivery methods.

Innovation design knowledge follows a structured process, adhering to the input-transformation-output model. It involves transforming resources like market insights and technical data into customer-centric designs. Balancing evaluation with creativity is crucial throughout the process to ensure both rigor and innovation.

The Stages of Innovation Design

1.    Concept Generation: Ideas for innovation can originate from diverse sources, including customer feedback, competitor activities, and internal brainstorming.

2.    Concept Screening: Evaluating concepts based on feasibility, acceptability, and vulnerability criteria to identify promising design options.

3.    Preliminary Design: Developing an initial design focusing on simplification through standardization, commonality, and modularization.

4.    Design Evaluation and Improvement: Utilizing methods like Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Value Engineering (VE) to refine the design and optimize costs.

5.    Prototyping and Final Design: Creating prototypes to test and validate the design's feasibility before full-scale implementation.

Innovation design knowledge is a dynamic process that transforms ideas into impactful services and products through structured stages, iterative refinement, and a balance of creativity and evaluation.