A101 - Is Engineering Ready to Standardize Innovation?
Machine Design, Penton Publishing, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
December 11, 2014
Description:
In spring 2014, the Product Development & Management Association [PDMA], one of the globe's foremost professional associations for product developers, put the first rail car on the track by announcing its' "Innovation Management Framework [IMF]." The IMF has six sections: Culture, Leadership, Resources, Processes, Monitoring & Measuring, and Improvement.
The IMF just received its first "industry-wide airing-out" at PDMA's annual conference, held October 18-22 in Denver. Professionals involved with innovation should definitely take a minute to internalize what PDMA has put on the table. At the least, assuming your company is actively trying out techniques to improve overall innovation, there is now a baseline to which you can compare your company.
Other practitioners and organizations are actively working on analogous innovation frameworks and standards that will also be made public in the months ahead. It is too early right now, given the still rapidly developing innovation body of knowledge, to know for sure what the ultimate best practices and resultant standards will be. But it is best practice today to know what currently exists, that engineering might be able to utilize to the benefit of its engineers, product professionals, and company customers.
Is Engineering Ready To Standardize Innovation? [Machine Design - December 11, 2014] discusses the growth and evolution of the "Innovation Body of Knowledge" over the past fifty years and makes the case that the time is perhaps nearing where certain aspects of "how to best innovate" might be nearing some level of standardization in corporate practices.
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