Innovation of the Week: 4 Steps to Innovation
Posted by: meikah | 19 September 2008 | 3:24 am
For most companies, innovation is overcoming the company’s daily challenges such as cutting costs, enteiring new markets, meeting customer needs, or coming up with new products and services.
RealInnovation.com outlines the following four steps to innovation:
- Always Be On the Lookout for Problems
- Re-form/Re-phrase the Company’s Response
- Know Latest Trends
- Take Help From Customers in Order to Improve
Filed under: Innovation Update, Innovation
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When Six Sigma and other Improvements Come from the Leadership
Posted by: meikah | 25 August 2008 | 8:44 pm
Inspired by Six Sigma and Toyota model of management, Windber Medical Center President F. Nicholas Jacobs has mandated quality healthcare.
One good thing about this is that the Johnstown, PA government is also helping out the healthcare industry in the area by launching a three-pronged approach to improve quality in healthcare:
- Pushing quality through public reporting.
- Enforcing quality through the False Claims Act.
- Incentivizing quality through payment reform.
Supplementing this approach is the “pay for performance” for physicians and hospitals. In other word, the government will be rewarding people for good performance. Read more…
In a related story, because of what Mr. Jacobs did, he was credited for being innovative. Here are a list of improvements that he has done:
- Expanded emergency and obstetrics departments
- Construction of “the ultimate education center”
- Transforming the small town hospital into a showcase of state-of-the-art medicine and holistic alternatives
- Extensive training for medical practitioners
- Focus on patient control and preventive medicine
When improvement comes from leadership, a lot can be achieved.
Source:
The Tribune-Democrat
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Deployment, Healthcare, Innovation, Quality, Six Sigma
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Innovation of the Week: Jim McNerney’s Thoughts on Innovation and Invention
Posted by: meikah | 7 August 2008 | 9:42 pm
To invent is to discover and to innovate is to renew.
Jim McNerney, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Boeing Company, shares his thoughts as the inaugural speaker of the James R. Mellor Lecture Series.
McNerney speaks:
Dean Munson, thank you very much for a very generous introduction.
Long before the Wright brothers invented it, people dreamed of human, powered flight. We know that from the many myths and fables about flight.
In ancient Greek mythology, Daedalus built the famous Labyrinth in Crete — and was later imprisoned in his own invention. (We’ll come back to that in a minute.) Ever resourceful, Daedalus made wings out of feathers tied together with linen threads and fastened with wax. Rising on their wings, Daedalus and his son Icarus escaped the Labyrinth.
Filed under: Innovation Update, Innovation, Aviation, Boeing
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Lean Six Sigma and Process Analytical Technology (PAT)
Posted by: meikah | 17 July 2008 | 12:38 am
According to the iSixSigma article:
PAT is a scientific program designed to reduce risk and is, essentially, about improving processes for effectiveness and efficiency in the pharmaceutical industry. PAT consists of four basic components:
- Process understanding
- Risk-reduction-based approach
- Regulatory strategy to accommodate innovation
- Real-time release
From the definition alone, it’s quite obvious that it is a perfect fit with Lean Six Sigma. Because like PAT, Lean Six Sigma:
- breaks down processes to make them more manageable
- works toward streamlining processes to reduce waste or risk
- encourages and supports innovation
- improves processes to achieve efficiency
Care to add to the list of reasons?
Filed under: Lean Six Sigma, Processes, Pharmaceuticals, Innovation, Six Sigma, Productivity, PAT
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Innovation of the Week: MySQL’s Collaborative Community
Posted by: meikah | 11 July 2008 | 12:02 am
As the World Wide Web grows, most of the information that you would want to find or that you need has become available and free.
The concept of collaborative community is the principle behind MySQL, touted as the world’s most popular database. The company has been committed to “open-source” innovation since its founding in 1995.
In a recent interview, MYSQL chief Marten Mickos shares his ideas about why MySQL’s Internet-age version of a barn raising produces superior innovation and what motivates all those developers.
He spoke with Josh Hyatt, contributing editor of MIT Sloan Management Review, for the Business Insight Journal Report.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: What would cause a company like MySQL to make the radical move of open sourcing its product? Does a business just have to be born with that tendency toward transparency?
MR. MICKOS: Interestingly, the whole company was started by the founders writing the product code themselves. They were thinking of a closed-source product. Then one of the founders saw a presentation about open source and convinced the others that this was the way the world was going to go. That was in the first year, 1995.
Filed under: Software/Technology, Team Dynamics, Innovation Update, Innovation, MySQL
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Innovation of the Week: China Mobile, Softbank, and Vodafone to Set Up an Innovation Lab
Posted by: meikah | 2 May 2008 | 2:22 am
ChinaTechNews reports that China Mobile will set up an innovation lab. The project is a joint endeavor with Softbank and Vodafone.
The joint innovation lab will serve as a platform for the parties to develop mobile services and drive innovation and synergy in the industry to the benefit of their combined global customer base, and it will also launch projects based on emerging technologies and market demand.
The Lab reportedly will focus on pushing the development of new mobile technology, application and services such as mobile widgets. In the initial stage, it plans to develop a platform for mobile widgets to encourage the development of innovative new services that can leverage mobile operators’ unique capabilities.
The mobile telecom is really on a roll these days, and I’m guessing that there’ll be more innovation efforts in this industry in the future.
Filed under: Telecommunications, Innovation Update, Technology, Innovation
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Innovation of the Week: An Invitation to Open Innovation
Posted by: meikah | 28 March 2008 | 2:43 am
Open innovation is taking a hold in most companies. It can work if the proper measures are drawn up. Here’s how to do it.
Check outl, BusinessWeek Online’s A Ripe Time for Open Innovation.
“Recessions present a good opportunity to collaborate with others on finding, developing, and marketing new ideas.” Continue reading…
Filed under: Innovation Update, Innovation
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Innovation of the Week: Tata’s Nano
Posted by: meikah | 7 March 2008 | 1:32 am
Much has been written about Tata’s Nano.
An article on BusinessWeek online says that the innovations of the $2,500 car carry important lessons for Western executives.
How could Tata Motors make a car so inexpensively? It started by looking at everything from scratch, applying what some analysts have described as “Gandhian engineering” principlesdeep frugality with a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. A lot of features that Western consumers take for grantedair conditioning, power brakes, radios, etc.are missing from the entry-level model.
Filed under: Manufacturing, Innovation Update, Innovation, Tata Motors
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Innovation + Six Sigma = The Balanced Innovator Book
Posted by: meikah | 15 January 2008 | 9:41 pm
Probably like most of us, Robert Carter also wondered why some products succeed and others fail. In the same manner that some companies are successful and others are not. The only difference between him and us is that he is discerning enough to know and find out the balance among the what, how, and why questions, and actually sit down and right his insights.
The book, The Balanced Innovator shows readers how to understand the importance of achieving the What, How, Why Balance, but also how to measure it and what to do to achieve it.
Carter will challenge us to think beyond world class performance, and describes how to render competitors efforts irrelevant. He also explains the strategies for listening to the ‘chorus of the customer’, and his approach makes it clear just how everybody in an organization is responsible for business growth.
The book is a result of Carter’s experiences in innovation and Six Sigma. Check it out!
Source:
MacroWorld Investor, a Six Sigma Zone featured link
Filed under: Six Sigma References, Innovation, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma
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Dow Chemical Innovates with Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 14 January 2008 | 8:54 pm
I had written about Dow Chemical here a number of times already: when they started going Six Sigma, how they use Six Sigma to save on energy, and improve processes in their human resource.
The latest I’m sharing with you is how Dow Chemical Co. pursues innovation by not soley relying on inspiration, but on Six Sigma.
Dow Chemical is one of those companies that regard innovation as the lifeblood of their business. Surely, they cannot wait for for inspiration to strike to come up with high-quality products and exceptional services.
Over at RealInnovation.com, Sue Reynand shares how Dow pairs innovation with Six Sigma to keep their business ahead. As a matter of fact, Dow combines different methodologies to be constantly on the go.
They have a systematic blend of Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), which supplants inspiration with investigation. According to Tom Kling, a longtime Dow employee who served as Master Black Belt:
“it has proven to be a powerful combination. Six Sigma and DFSS bring the kind of up-front decision making that makes sure the problems you’re working on are important to the business. On the other hand, it helps you arrive at new solutions by importing technical solutions or scientific principles from other disciplines. So you solve design problems much more quickly.”
*Photo from Stock.Xchng
