It took just four hours

innovation

Last week we had a great example of a success story with a company of several hundreds of people that exports all over the world. The company took our advice, and after just four hours of training, yes just four hours from a standing start, they set up two competing innovation teams.

Two months later, they have achieved two astonishing breakthrough innovations.

Their presentation to top management and the Board is in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see who takes out their inaugural award.

What they did

One team used the “Process Innovation Matrix” and worked on several products all made by the same process. The outcome can be used with many of their other products, numbering over 50 “skews”.

It is estimated this will reduce the product cost in time, rework and rejects by close to 25 per cent. This is huge on a product that sells for as much as $2000.

All this by one small team with the application of our applied innovation to their process.

The second team used the “Product Innovation Matrix” and innovated (Changed to add Value) a simple nut and bolt assembly that is targeted to remove six hours of machine downtime for their customer every three months. This for machines that can cost in excess of $100K per day to operate. What a win with a patentable new initiative that will lock them into their customers for a very long time into the future.

This reminds me of a blog we did many months ago, it was titled “A tiny change can make a big difference”. Certainly true in this case

What’s the message?

A small amount of training and a simple approach to innovation and the formation of competing teams does deliver real value.

As they say, “innovate or perish” and realise that it’s not expensive, it’s simple and it works.

Roger La Salle, innovation trainer, Matrix Thinking