Innovation is seen as the hallmark of creative development
while perfection is seen as the surrogate of supreme quality. Customer delight
arises from a combination of innovation and perfection. Innovatively designed
products that are made to perfection surprise, delight and inspire customers.
From an economic point of view, a combination of innovation and perfection results
in greater productivity and sustainability. The beauty of this combination is
that it is applicable not only to products and services but also to processes.
Generally, however, innovation and perfection are seen to be somewhat
antithetical to each other, with innovative products running the risk of
failure and perfect products being a result of highly standardized inputs and
processes, proven in millions of repetitive cycles. This intriguing reality has
probably a socio-economic behavioural causation too; one can wait for
innovation but not eternally and one can seek perfection but not at the cost of
immediate needs.
While innovation could be a result of spontaneous intuition
or diligent serendipity, and perfection could be a result of a mind-set steeped
in conformity and quality, in most cases innovation and perfection are highly
organized activities requiring time and effort. In principle, the greater the
time and effort expended on innovation and perfection, the greater is the
possibility of innovation and perfection. The pathway to innovation on which
time and effort are spent is often dictated by the target of innovation. The
pathway to perfection on which time and effort are spent is dictated by the
level of specifications on one hand and usage feedback on the gap between
specifications and requirements on one hand and the gap between specifications
and performance on the other. The
targets of innovation and perfection are, themselves, set somewhat
subconsciously by what humans as the experimenters see as the limits for
innovation or perfection. As this process is complex, practitioners seek
optimality which ironically could be sub-optimization.
Substrates
In reality, innovation that we see in products or services is
invariably preceded by innovation in basic technologies. The innovative
televisions of today are made possible because of innovations in display screen
technologies such as OLED that were seeded a few years ago for palm size
screens. When several innovative technologies become available novel products
incorporating such technologies get to be developed, albeit with a lag. Strange
as it may seem, rarely innovation gets defined ab initio at the end-product
level. This facet of innovation in multiple technology substrates represents
both an opportunity and a challenge for product level innovation. The
opportunity arises in terms of choice and speed while the challenge arises
because of imbalance in innovation of parts. Rarely one gets to have a total
product technology mission that targets innovation in raw materials,
components, integrating systems, manufacturing equipment, production processes,
and end-products as one holistic mission.
That perfection does not necessarily move with innovation,
and vice versa, is fairly obvious. Apple which has seemingly attained
perfection with its iPhone range until recently (say, till iPhone 5) has not
necessarily been innovative in all the departments. On the other hand, as the
innovation level (as exemplified by a slim form factor) got bumped up in the
iPhone 6 range, perfection lagged as evidenced by bending phones, protruding
camera modules and blurred images in some lots. Samsung has been innovative in
form factor and stylus based phones but never reached the top in terms of
perfection. Incorporation of OIS modules in slim phones represent a greater
challenge in terms of achieving perfection rather than integrating innovation.
Inevitably, every first generation innovative product, be it cell phone or
holography headset, emerges to be a rather bulky, blunt or crude form of
innovation (at least, until after the next generation products are unveiled).
Parts and the whole
The author of this blog once wrote a post titled “Style is
Substance: Management of Product Design and Manufacture”, Strategy Musings,
August 8, 2009 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2009/08/style-is-substance-management-of.html).
The post argued that the style of a product demands substance in design and
manufacture of a product, and boosts efficiency, encourages creativity,
promotes flexibility and drives growth but also demands management competence to
ensure all of this. The blog post was, in fact, inspired by the crop of
stylistic products that began to be unveiled during those years. Much
intellectual water has flowed under the bridge since then with rapidly evolving
products and amazingly shortening life cycles. While style and substance seem to
have stood up over the last six years as a solid pair, perfection and
innovation seem to be moving out of step, of late. This can be traced to the
mismatch of perfection and innovation in the parts and the whole.
Product design as a technical discipline has such versatile
facets that a few parts can make a significant change to performance but such
trend can neither be unlimited nor perpetual. For example, a superior
drive-train can step up an automobile to a different performance trajectory but
without matching strides in overall strength-weight parameters or navigation
systems, enhancement in performance of parts would soon be blocked. When breakthrough
products are conceptualized, every part needs to be thought of for innovation
and perfection. When Airbus A380 was designed as the largest commercial plane,
each and every part had to be redefined to newer standards. The difference
between a spaceship for a lunar expedition and a spaceship for mars mission
would need a complete conceptual redesign. The challenge of perfect innovation
lies in absorbing the approaches from such uncommon products to common
products.
Perfect innovation
Perfect innovation may be defined as an organized process in
which each component of a product is covered with innovation. This requires
concurrent engineering and manufacture of a different detail and differentiated
calibre. To institutionalize perfect innovation, a firm has to approach product
development and commercialization in two distinct tracks. The first track
covers the routinely followed quick-upgrade product cycle. This would
incorporate typically certain innovative upgrades to differentiate products across
generations; such product cycles may alternately focus on innovation or
perfection. Typical examples are found in white goods and consumer goods
sectors. The improvements in loading systems or washing cycles in washing
machines, enhancements in purification and water recovery in water purifiers,
integration of new materials in cooking systems, miniaturization of routers and
dongles, enhancements in pixel density of display screens, improvements in
aperture sizes of camera sensors and inverter integrated air conditioners are
examples of such routine product developments.
The second track, which actually is the track of perfect
innovation, reappraises the entire product concept in terms of the total design
and functionality of the end-product at one level and the design and
manufacture of every material, component, system and assembly at another level.
The first editions of digital camera, smart phone, flat panel television, and
several such others represent close examples of perfect innovation. The reasons
are that each of the products had several totally new components (not merely
upgrades of existing ones) involving new materials, new designs and new
manufacturing processes. All of these products had new operating systems as
well. Introduction of digital technology has enabled definition of metrics for
measuring innovation and perfection. Until the entry of digital technology,
mechanical fits and tolerances determined the perfection of manufacture.
Digital technology helps monitor the perfection of manufacture as well as
on-site performance on a continuing basis in critical equipment such as medical
imaging equipment, diagnostic equipment and infusion equipment.
Bill of innovation
Perfect innovation is a multi-stage iterative process which
starts in the first phase with a total redefinition of the product concept.
This stage can be applied to any product, from a telephone or a television to a
hotel room or operation theatre. This stage requires truly out-of-the-box
thinking on product configuration, which could reposition even plateauing or
declining products. For example, the land telephone which has reached a stage
of plateau can be subjected to this process. From a mere dialing instrument for physical
communication, it can be converted into a home management robot. At the very
least all the functionalities of a smart phone like multiple ringtones, display
screens, voice assistance, voice recording and play back, and a number of
utilities such as alarm, compass and calendar can be incorporated. At a higher
level, it can be embedded with a mini-computer which can provide instructions
to various devices and equipment in home, serve as daily organizer and also
serve as a real-time camera to record entrants to the home. A fundamental
re-positioning of a traditional product, based on a new technology substrate, is
the first phase of perfect innovation.
The next phase is the crucial operative phase which comprises
four parallel inter-connected streams of technology substrate choice, detailed
bill of materials, bill of innovation corresponding to bill of materials and
component-specific manufacturing perfection scheme, including testing and
quality assurance and equipment planning. These four streams encompass the
product on an end-to-end basis, from design to delivery. At the end of this
second phase, the first prototypes of the new breakthrough product would be
available. The third final phase is the iterative phase when the prototypes are
honed to perfection, adding incremental innovation and perfection to each
component to perfect the overall product style and substance. At the end of
this phase, the product would be ready for homologation and commercial
manufacture. As opposed to a typical 6 month upgrade cycle, perfect innovation
would require a minimum development and commercialization cycle time of 3 to 5
years. Firms would do well to split their R&D and Manufacturing functions into
Improvement Business Units and Redefinition Business Units.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on September 01, 2015
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