The word “Innovation” meets us everywhere: at work, bank, pharmacy, bank, post office, gym, playground… “Innovation” became a brand indicating the effectiveness and success of the company. Do we clearly understand what innovation is? This article discusses the essence of innovation and the difference between innovation and process/product change, improvement, or fixing. We also discuss and describe the innovation process using the PRIZ Innovation Platform. The Ambiguity of Innovation Definitions The internet provides an abundance of different definitions and explanations of innovation. This suggests that the concept of innovation is not trivial and requires further analysis and clarification. According to…

This case study explores the usage of Process Functional Modeling (PFM) as a problem-solving tool in microchip manufacturing. PFM is an innovative way of thinking that involves breaking down a process into its components on multiple levels and generating innovative solutions. The tool enables us to move from general to specific, from process to operations, operations to components, and components to functions. In this article, we provide a real-life example of how a team applied PFM to the microchip manufacturing process. We want to demonstrate its effectiveness in creating a model of failure in the context of the whole process….

Have you ever been in a situation where while discussing different solutions for a problem, you and your group is trying to solve, people finding all kind of reasons why something is impossible or extremely difficult? The arguments might sound like “It’s very difficult”, “This solution is very expensive”, “It’s not going to work!”, or even “This is a stupid idea!” I am pretty certain you have. This phenomenon, and many more, are part of Psychological Inertia. Now, let’s dive into the details.   Definition I always like to start with the plain and dry definition. Unfortunately, Cambridge dictionary does…

Our life is full of changes. We change apartments, cars, work, accept a new position, start learning, etc. We make a lot of changes at our work too – maintain equipment, clean the products, change vendors, and hire or fire people. And we can continue the list of possible changes endlessly. The question is, do we need these changes or not? Are they innovations or just changes? In most cases, people don’t bother much to analyze or even think about the reason for any change they make. Here, let’s do the simple analysis that everyone should do. And we’ll do…

“Our life would never be as advanced and comfortable as it is if not for the application of tantalum and niobium.” And this is right. This is what I wrote at the very beginning of my book about tantalum and niobium chemistry. Tantalum capacitors are everywhere: in our cellphones, computers, in about any electronic device you use. Due to the unique properties of tantalum, these capacitors provide a champion performance within the smallest size. Defibrillators and pacemakers contain tantalum capacitors because of their reliability. Tantalum is the only material that is fully compatible with the human body; therefore, parts made…

The problem-solving tool is a paradoxical concept. Ask people: “Do you know that problem-solving tools speed up a problem-solving process?” A typical answer will be:  “Yes.” If you continue and ask: “Do you always use problem-solving tools?” The most common answer is: “No, I do not have time to use any tools when I solve a problem.” This is a really puzzling situation. Think about it, people don’t play chess without knowing how to play, don’t make a statistical analysis without learning math, don’t perform surgery without relevant education, etc. In the case of problem-solving, more often than not, even…

In today’s world, every company is trying its best to innovate. Some are very successful at that, but the majority are not so much. In this article, I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with how many people solve problems and innovate. A typical example Here is a common situation in many problem solving workshops I am conducting. Teh audience is split into small groups. Each group is working on a certain problem. As a facilitator, I am moving from one group to another to see how are they doing and to provide guidance. I am approaching one…

Have you ever tried to understand what an Innovation Platform is? Do we really need an Innovation Platform in the business? What is its position and function in the business system? In this post, we’ll try to answer these questions. As we have already proved in our previous blog (You can’t buy yourself an innovation), the innovation level of a company is not correlating with the R&D expenses. Here, we want to use the same data and look at this from a bit different angle. The top 40 innovative companies We picked 40 of some of the best and well-known…

The expenses on R&D is the most popular indicator of company innovation level. And many organizations are following that. They dump money on R&D with the hope to innovate more. But the question is, Is there a correlation between innovation rank and R&D expenses? There is a lot of related information you can find on the web, we, however, made our own analysis that confirmed that high R&D spending does not mean high innovation level of a company. In short, you can’t buy yourself an innovation. High innovation rank at low R&D cost should be the preferable target for a…