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9772 results in Engineering: general interest

Page 149 of 489

The Life and Letters of Faraday
  • Volume 1
  • Bence Jones, Michael Faraday
  • Published online:
    05 October 2010
    Print publication:
    24 June 2010
    First published in:
    1870
  • Michael Faraday (1791–1867) made foundational contributions in the fields of physics and chemistry, notably in relation to electricity. One of the greatest scientists of his day, Faraday held the position of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain for over thirty years. Not long after his death, his friend Henry Bence Jones attempted 'to join together his words, and to form them into a picture of his life which may be almost looked upon as an autobiography'. Jones' compilation of Faraday's manuscripts, letters, notebooks, and other writings resulted in this Life and Letters (1870) which remains an important resource for learning more about one of the most influential scientific experimentalists of the nineteenth century. Volume 1 (1791–1830) covers Faraday's earliest years as an errand boy and bookbinder's apprentice, his arrival at the Royal Institution as an assistant and his early publications on electricity.

  • 6 - Grafting the Tefal model: astonishing performance from an innovative start-up

  • from PART II - Design capacities in innovative firms
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 122-136

  • Summary

    Before trying out our model for innovative firms on cases that are very different from Tefal, we shall begin by putting it to the test in the specific context of an innovative start-up, Avanti.

    Avanti was created by Vincent Chapel using the Tefal model. He had been fascinated by his work with Tefal and by the model he had discovered there; he was keen to test the model's coherency, efficiency and feasibility and to see whether, by putting it into practice, he could ‘manufacture’ a new Tefal. In 2000, just two years after its creation, Avanti won a National Trophy for Innovation. In this chapter, we shall see how this came about and how Avanti used the model to fit its own circumstances.

    Innovative design: a key growth factor for start-ups

    Start-ups go hand in hand with innovation, at least in the literature. The new economy provides plenty of stories of lively start-ups outperforming sluggish organizations in the old economy, although there are, of course, a few counterexamples too. Nonetheless, start-ups do seem to be a form of organization that can compete with large firms in terms of innovation, and this is reason enough to study them here.

    There are in fact two reasons for taking a closer look at start-ups. First of all the question of innovation in a new company comes down to the question of innovative design.

  • 15 - Innovative design, platforms and open innovation: the management of exploratory partnerships

  • from PART IV - Innovative design: tools and organizations
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 312-327

  • Summary

    ‘All these elements will help me manage our innovative design projects and I am keen to put them into practice in our firm. But one last point is bothering me: I don't think we will be able to carry out all our explorations inside the firm. Quite a few of the innovation fields I have in mind will involve outside partners. Can you give me any advice on this matter?’

    Our Innovation Manager is right, of course; this is a key point.

    In previous chapters we have focused on exploring and structuring innovation fields, the main challenge being to understand the type of design reasoning involved. We showed that significant progress was possible in terms of constructing, sharing and evaluating this reasoning and also in organizing the collective action required to do so. In our view, it was crucial to begin by mastering the design reasoning even though it meant that the organizational perimeter of the explorations had to be put to one side. In practice, of course, it is relatively unusual for innovation fields to be explored within the strict perimeter of a single firm.

    In most cases, innovative design requires outside resources. This explains the situation often described in the literature: open innovation (Chesbrough 2003). More fundamentally, the revision of object identities, inherent in innovative design, also revises firms' relationships to their environment. Stable identities enable dominant designs to emerge, industries to be structured, design work to be divided out and performance to be stabilized.

  • 14 - The inevitable return to rule-based design

  • from PART IV - Innovative design: tools and organizations
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 300-311

  • Summary

    ‘These theoretical frameworks and specific examples will be of great help in organizing innovative design and in finding effective instruments. I must say I was surprised by how technical the examples are. First, the objects have to be modelled very carefully and precisely, with a hands-on approach, but second, I was struck by how much knowledge is economized by the formal framework, as only knowledge that serves the reasoning comes into play. Nonetheless, the formal C-K framework illustrates the nature of the strategic reasoning needed for innovative design and makes the technical aspects easier to understand.’

    ‘I now have a better idea of how to manage innovative design, but there is still one point which worries me. Can you explain the notion of “return to rule-based design”, or the traditional system of R&D?’

    Once again, the Innovation Manager's questions help us explain a vital point: there is no question of innovative design seeking to replace rule-based design. On the contrary, the greater the efforts made in rule-based design, the better the chances of being able to fully exploit the product lineages stemming from the innovation fields. Rule-based design is therefore vital in terms of return on investment. We shall now see how innovative design can prepare for rule-based design.

    From the exploration of an innovation field to rule-based design

    In formal terms, rule-based design reasoning can be explained by the C-K design theory (see Figure 14.1).

  • 13 - Type 3 innovation fields: combining scientific research and conceptual innovation

  • from PART IV - Innovative design: tools and organizations
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 288-299

  • Summary

    The third type of innovation field concerns projects for designing what we call science-based products (SBP). These products combine two difficulties: working on a functional definition whilst at the same time producing scientific knowledge on the main phenomena associated with the product. SBPs do not involve applied research, in which prior research results are applied to often well-identified functions; for SBPs, the functions are not specified and the phenomena to be investigated emerge during the process. Nor do SBPs involve fundamental research, which consists of working on a given phenomenon, with no target applications; SBPs have product development objectives with high (albeit ill-defined) stakes in terms of functions.

    In this type of innovation field, there is a large expansion in both concepts and knowledge. It is not easy to make the distinction between ‘techniques’ and ‘values’. Whereas the creation of new lineages (ΔC-δK) puts the priority on value (the techniques either being considered of secondary importance or already acquired) and the regeneration of functions (δC-ΔK) has to be content with minimum value explorations to produce knowledge, for SBPs, value and competencies must always be designed simultaneously. There are also some special cases when ΔC-δK and δC-ΔK follow on from each other.

    Examples of ΔC-ΔK

    WITAS and the Mg-C0 project studied in Chapter 10 both concerned SBPs.

    There are also some famous cases of innovation which illustrate ΔC-ΔK, such as Edison's invention of incandescent lighting, a model of reasoning combining scientific production and value exploration (Hughes 1983). Hughes showed how reasoning on the value of electrical lighting systems for the home (ΔC) led to clever modelling of electrical systems (ΔK) which in turn led to further reflection on value and competencies (work on different types of alternators, generators and, finally, a filament for an incandescent light bulb). […]

  • 9 - Learning from experience: expansions from an innovative windscreen at Saint-Gobain Sekurit

  • from PART III - Rebuilding innovation capabilities
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 192-222

  • Summary

    Saint-Gobain Sekurit is one of the leading automotive glass manufacturers in the world. Each year, more than 12 million vehicles are equipped with Sekurit glass, representing nearly 20 per cent of the world market and 50 per cent of the European market. At the front end of the glazing supply chain, Saint-Gobain manufactures glass from raw materials, an activity which demands heavy investment and involves delicate techniques. Saint-Gobain Sekurit is recognized for its leading savoir faire; less than a dozen companies in the world are capable of producing such complex products.

    In 1997, Saint-Gobain Sekurit was the archetype of the large R&D-based firm, with none of the characteristics of an industry where one would expect to find a system of intensive innovation. At the time, there was no newcomer competing through innovation, there was no contact with final users requiring innovation, there was no pressure for innovation, apart from costs and a clearly identified level of performance. So why, in the space of just a few years, did the firm switch to intensive innovation?

    In the following pages, we study the birth, or rather the ‘morphogenesis’, of the new I function and see how Saint-Gobain Sekurit adopted RID.

    In the first part, we explain why the R&D-based organization tended to prevent an I function from emerging. We focus on the scale of the transformation, which affected the firm's products (which became complex and multi-functional) and also its basic functions and technologies (in a few years, Saint-Gobain Sekurit switched from traditional thermomechanics to microelectronics).

  • Introduction: from R&D to RID

  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp xix-xxxvi

  • Summary

    There is now widespread agreement that innovation holds the key to future economic and social prosperity in developed countries. Experts studying contemporary capitalism also agree that the battle against unemployment and relocations can be won only through innovation. It is the great challenge of the day and, for many specialists, the only possible solution to the problems facing western societies and to the current recession. Whether it is studied from a local or a global standpoint, innovation is the only way of satisfying the social, environmental and economic facets of growth, and of increasing levels of education whilst also creating value, jobs and purchasing power. It also seems to be the only way of reconciling, at least temporarily, employees, managers, consumers and shareholders.

    In the face of such unanimity, governments in developed and in emerging economies have set up various incentive schemes designed to promote innovation, including special subsidies and aids for investment in R&D. Initiatives such as the EU common policy aimed at ‘building a knowledge-based economy’, notions such as ‘lifelong learning and key competencies’ and even the ‘information society’ all translate the same imperative for innovation. But is enough being done to meet the challenge?

    A great deal of research has been carried out by firms and government departments, but what do we actually know about innovation? For instance, do we know which factors enhance a firm's innovation capability and whether financial incentives guarantee effective innovation? Can we use the traditional views of innovation to build the innovative firms and regions of the future?

  • 7 - Large firms and intensive innovation: the recurring R&D crises

  • from PART III - Rebuilding innovation capabilities
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 139-159

  • Summary

    ‘Is the model of the innovative firm close or radically opposed to R&D? ’

    Can the model derived from the Tefal case be used in other firms? Let's imagine our Innovation Manager's reaction.

    ‘The model is highly instructive and confirms some of my intuitions. But above all, it gives me a language to help understand and explain to my colleagues that traditional solutions, however attractive some of them may still seem, cannot be used in a context of intensive innovation. For instance, take the case of “blockbusters”, miracle products or services that are supposed to secure a firm's growth for many years ahead. The idea is really tempting for innovation departments like ours. But the blockbuster model focuses solely on static returns to design, with no question of reusing excess knowledge. It is therefore a risky model as it ignores learning rents.’

    ‘The same applies to the random model, where the innovation department simply tries to balance a project portfolio between large and small and long-term and medium-term projects. Once again, the model manages the returns to each project but does not take into account learning rents and possible interdependencies between the different projects.’

    ‘The Tefal model also shows the limitations of a model based purely on expertise. It shows that growth is always the result of a combination of expertise (in expansion) and a design process. Innovation departments can't just manage experts and knowledge, but must address the problem of how to combine knowledge management and the process for designing products and services.

  • 12 - Type 2 innovation fields: design by drastic technological change and by regenerating functions

  • from PART IV - Innovative design: tools and organizations
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 273-287

  • Summary

    The second type of innovation field involves regenerating functions. It covers a variety of relatively classic situations such as the use of promising technologies, reforms to functions, renewals in competencies, front-end functions or, more generally speaking, forms of ‘innovative D’. It entails issues such as developing innovative technologies, solving recurrent problems, moving away from ‘amateur’ solutions, inventing ‘creative compromises’ (Weil 1999), launching technical ‘monsters’ and creating alliances and new interfaces between functions. In all these situations, the key focus is on knowledge production.

    However, there are restrictions to such explorations as the aim is to limit the impact on the object to be designed, to avoid challenging neighbouring functions and to change the object's identity as little as possible. The context is similar to the design of complex systems, where one of the challenges is precisely to separate out, confine and reuse known solutions and avoid spreading constraints. The exercise entails renewing knowledge whilst changing only a minimum number of the object's attributes.

    Examples of δC-ΔK

    The predominant feature of δC-ΔK is an expansion in knowledge which has a significant impact but is mainly confined to value. This ‘intuitive’ situation has had wide coverage in economic literature and in the history of science and techniques. There are numerous examples of technical changes in an apparently stable functional perimeter, such as the change from cathode ray tubes to flat screens, from silver film to digital film photography, from steam to electric railways, from iodine lamps to transistors, from wind-up to quartz watches and from gas to electric lighting. […]

  • 2 - Management sciences and innovation: identity of objects and innovation capability

  • from PART I - From innovation to innovative design
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 23-50

  • Summary

    A number of practical questions immediately arise when we look at innovation as a field of action rather than purely a phenomenon. Take the case of the new ‘innovation management’ function that has been introduced in many firms in recent years. What exactly do innovation managers or directors do? What is the scope of their activities and how do they organize their teams and divide the work between the different members? How do they interact with the other functions in the firm, the factories, research laboratories and engineering and design departments? How is their work evaluated, on what basis and with which criteria?

    Confronted with the issue of managing the ‘action of innovation’, we can begin by seeing whether or not the notions mentioned above can be considered as means of action. Should innovation managers organize ‘communities of practice’? Should they collect ideas and consult lead-users? Should they finance R&D by allocating optimal budgets and resources? Should they distinguish between incremental and radical innovation? Should they consider new business specializations for radical innovation? For innovation managers, and indeed for all the other players concerned, are these notions actionable? Before that question can be answered, we need to know the aim of the action itself. What is the innovation in question? Are we talking about changing the colour of a product or introducing a new technology? Who will judge the ‘novelty’, the customer or the professionals? What is ‘good’ innovation? How can the efficiency of processes be evaluated?

  • 10 - The methodologies of innovative design: C-K theory, innovation fields and design spaces

  • from PART IV - Innovative design: tools and organizations
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 225-255

  • Summary

    Organizing the I function

    As in previous chapters, we begin with a few practical comments and questions from the Innovation Manager. ‘I agree with the idea that innovative design is a specific activity, different from activities in the engineering and design or research departments. This distinction clarifies the role of D and R and their interdependency with I. All too often, confusion between I and R&D has meant that I-type projects have been undertaken without having the right resources, with the result that they have been judged as bad research or bad development projects. I also agree that “innovation fields”, which enable projects to be launched without necessarily thinking about the final product, favour exploratory approaches, both in terms of value and competencies, and help evaluate the work on the basis of new criteria.

    ‘But R and D already have sophisticated management tools to organize and steer them, and we need to find similar management methods for innovative design. This raises a number of questions regarding evaluation criteria and organization, particularly with respect to interactions with R&D and with the other designers. Also, how can innovation fields be structured and how can any excess knowledge be reused? Do we already have any methods, tools, good practices or models?’

    Models of activity and organization of the I function in large firms

    In recent years there has been a massive increase in the number of ‘innovation departments’, in the form of business development units, innovation-oriented centres, departments for research, innovation and preliminary projects, etc.

  • 4 - Highly innovative firms – Tefal 1974–1997: the wizards of Rumilly

  • from PART II - Design capacities in innovative firms
  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 69-96

  • Summary

    Innovation from the inside

    In Chapter 1 we mentioned a number of real cases of players directly involved in innovation. In this chapter, we introduce an imaginary Innovation Manager who has just been appointed to a large firm and who will serve as a guide for the concrete problems facing managers on an everyday basis. He begins with some very practical questions. ‘In the current system of innovation-intensive capitalism, how can we manage our firm's design capacities when we have uncertain object identities and limited resources? My company has just created the job of Innovation Manager and knows that there is an urgent need to address the issue, but how do I go about it in practice? Where can I find the new techniques we need to manage innovation?’

    To answer these questions, we needed to study innovation ‘from the inside’, but the first problem was to decide where to look and what to describe. There were hosts of examples of workshops with state-of-the-art prototypes, of open-plan offices with the muffled hum of CAD workstations. There were also scores of visionary leaders and distraught managers, not to mention the thousands of anonymous engineers and doctors designing the cars, microprocessors, drugs, food products or services of the future. They could tell us about their successes and failures, the palace intrigues and all that went on behind the scenes, but were their experiences relevant to the problem of managing design capacities? The greatest prudence was required.

  • Bibliographical appendix: Innovation viewed by the different disciplines: an extended survey of the literature

  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp 346-400

  • Summary

    Our study of innovation would not be complete without mentioning the economic, marketing, cognitive, organizational and managerial dimensions that come into play. The aim of this appendix is to summarize the extensive literature on each of these aspects. We will look at the five disciplines in turn: economics, sociology, the cognitive sciences, organization and management. For each discipline, we will focus on three characteristics:

  • The genealogy of the research questions. A number of concepts have been proposed in each of the five disciplines, but to understand how they came into being and their impact, they have to be placed in the genealogical context of the different streams of research. For each concept, we will look at the type of question it dealt with and the context that led the different disciplines to address the issue and to produce the different models and theories. By studying when and why the new concepts emerged, we will have a clearer picture of the different questions which researchers were confronted with over the years.

  • The key notions and their links with action. In the past, research was very much affected by the discipline it belonged to. In many cases, innovation as such was not the subject of the research but reflected a tactical stance: the authors used a description of phenomena relating to innovation to challenge their disciplines' established theories. This perspective led to progress in studying the phenomena involved in innovation but, contrary to a management approach, did not focus on the generation of new forms of collective action. This is why the concepts sometimes appear inadequate compared with the challenges involved in managing the economic, marketing, organizational or cognitive aspects of activities designed to encourage innovation.

  • […]

  • Foreword by Paul Rivier

  • Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil, Armand Hatchuel
  • Book:
    Strategic Management of Innovation and Design
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    09 September 2010, pp ix-x

  • Summary

    It gives me great pleasure to preface this book on innovation. In 1994, a young student contacted me because he wanted to do a PhD thesis on innovation at Tefal. I agreed, but on the condition that he took an active part in designing new products. Vincent Chapel was more successful than I had ever imagined. He managed some very interesting innovations for Tefal and then went on to create several innovative start-ups, one of which is described here. Also, his PhD, directed by Armand Hatchuel, gave me the opportunity to get to know and appreciate the research presented by the authors of this book.

    As a company director, the necessity for innovation seems quite natural to me. It is not just one priority among others, as all the rest depends on it. First, economic survival, of course, but also the social well-being of the personnel, which, in my view, is the main purpose of firms. In the different companies I have managed over the years, I have always personally committed myself to exploring all the possible paths for new developments. I believe this is part of a manager's responsibilities. If all we have to propose are efforts to increase productivity, we can hardly expect members of staff to be really committed to the firm. It was doubtless this frame of mind which encouraged us to adopt design reasoning and business decisions in favour of innovation.

Page 149 of 489