|
|
|
   
|
||||||
|
New
LearnPAK Online Training Series
|
Businesses that thrive on innovation are seeking new technologies to make it speedier and cheaper to innovate. Models, prototypes, controlled environments, and computer simulations allow innovators to improvise and evaluate ideas. This allows businesses to release new products to the public quicker than with traditional techniques, according to a new book, Experimentation Matters. Traditionally, testing has been relatively expensive. As a result, experimentation capacity has been constrained and the number of times an experiment is performed remained limited. Furthermore, experimentation has often been confined to verification of known outcomes. When the test is a high-profile one, such as preliminary evaluation of a new and expensive weapons system, companies regard a successful outcome as one with no new information or surprises. Businesses and their testers learn nothing new from experimentation in this fashion, writes Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke, warning of the potential for business stagnation. Two innovations continue to make significant inroads in business today, according to Thomke. First, computer modeling and simulation reproduce the conditions of reality electronically. Many automobile companies use this technique to test the results of their products in crash situations. In the computer, factors like velocity and weight can be factored in to determine the impact of a crash on vehicles and passengers. Sequencing and analyzing the human genome and understanding the flow of fluids in baby diapers owe their success to computer simulations. While cheaper than real-life testing, computer simulation has a disadvantage in that it cannot account for every variable, and, in the case of automobile testing, data is still required from real models using traditional testing. Predicting rollover in a computer is notoriously difficult, notes Thomke. Second, rapid prototyping and combinatorial technologies can quickly generate inexpensive, easily modified prototypes that can be tested under real-as opposed to virtual-conditions. They preserve the advantages of working in the physical world and overcome any limitations that occur in a simulation. Drug developers, for example, can quickly generate numerous variations simultaneously and screen products at a fraction of the cost of traditional testing. Another example is stereolithography, a technology that creates three-dimensional plastic objects from computer-aided designs in hours rather than weeks or months. Using this technique, engineers can develop new ceramics, metals, and polymers. Companies are beginning to shift the locus of experimentation to their customers. A global supplier of specialty flavors has built a toolkit allowing customers to develop their own flavors. General Electric provides customers with Web-based tools for designing better plastic products. Software companies have products that let users design, build, distribute, and support their own programs without needing the manufacturer. "Tapping into the innovativeness and imagination of customers- not just R&D departments-can generate tremendous value," says Thomke. "Not only could shifting experimentation to customers result in faster development of products better suited to their needs, but it could generate innovations that suppliers simply cannot imagine today."
Click here to view more current news articles Did you find this material interesting? Comment via FEEDBACK
Source: Futurist, The
Have you seen the Great Deals from top brand name manufacturers? You haven't? What are you waiting for? Get insider promotions. Click Here for deals
|
|
|
|
