Many organizations struggle with the dynamics and the complexity of today's social ecosystems that connect everyone and everything, everywhere and all the time. Facing challenges at the intersection of business models, technical developments, and human needs, modern enterprises must overcome the siloed thinking and isolated efforts of the past, and instead address their relationships to people holistically. In Intersection, Milan Guenther introduces a Strategic Design approach that aligns the overarching efforts of Branding, Enterprise Architecture, and Experience Design, and sets them on a common course to shape tomorrow’s enterprises.This book gives designers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders a model and a comprehensive vocabulary for tackling such deep-rooted challenges. The Enterprise Design framework cuts through the complexity of Strategic Design work, showing how to navigate key aspects and bridge diverging viewpoints. In 9 case studies, the author looks at the way companies like SAP, BBVA, IKEA, and Jeppesen (a Boeing Company) apply design thinking and practice to shape their enterprises. Moving from strategy to conceptual design and concrete results, Intersection shows what is relevant at which point, and what expertise to involve.
Starting from the increasing difficulties firms face to create new value for customers and achieve competitive advantage, this book proposes an innovative strategy to sustain innovation at the product level, based on the notion of tradition. Specifically, the authors argue that firms may successfully innovate, exploiting the whole set of competencies, knowledge, values and culture that characterize a specific firm, territory, and/or age. Analyzing several international case studies, this book clearly shows how tradition may be effectively used, allowing companies to create successful new products and how to profit from them. The book tackles the main issues and problems of a tradition-based innovation approach, tracing the patterns of how old and new knowledge can be combined.
Innovation in product design starts with materials. Developing successful commercial products demands a sound understanding of the materials that go into those products—their uses, their costs, their lifetime performance. However, the valuable knowledge of materials engineers is often not fully leveraged in the creative phase of the product design cycle. Gessinger seeks to bridge this gap that exists in many companies.Written from the bottom-up perspective of the engineer or scientist on a product design team, Materials and Innovative Product Design introduces business, economics and strategic product development to the materials specialist and demystifies materials selection for other members of the design team and manufacturing management. Using case studies from innovative organizations, such as ABB, and successful start-ups, such as NDC, Day4Energy, and Metoxit, Gessinger illustrates how the integration of different engineering and business disciplines can power innovation in the design process. By addressing the real world needs of innovators, this book allows the reader to unlock the potential of the new material types that have been changing the face of product design and deploy an integrated business approach to materials selection and the design process.
The intimate apparel business is undergoing major technological change. New measurement and design techniques, combined with innovative materials and production methods, are transforming the range, quality and applications of women’s lingerie. This important book provides an authoritative review of these developmentsAfter an introductory chapter on the concept of body beauty, a first group of chapters discuss innovations in the manufacture of brassieres, including developments in breast measurement and sizing, innovations in bra design and improvements in bra pattern technology. The following sequence of chapters reviews key developments in girdles. Topics discussed include innovations in girdle design and use and research on the physiological effects of body shapers. The book concludes by assessing developments in intimate apparel with special functions such as sports bras, and innovation in knitted and seamless intimate apparel.Innovation and technology of women’s intimate apparel is a standard reference for designers and engineers working in this important area of the textile industry.
Innovation is an ancient art, may be as old as 500,000 years, but managing innovation is a relatively young management technique, only a few decades old, and has received much less attention than other aspects of innovation such as creativity, entrepreneurship or venturing. This book is not about providing a series of recipes on innovation management or a collection of case stories on how to do innovation or not. The few examples given are well known innovations from (Shell) history and all of them have been described before in the literature. However, this book does not focus on the brilliant result or failure of the innovations, but on the process of innovation in order to understand the features of a well-managed innovation effort. The book has been written around six main themes:1. Understanding innovation as a business process and how it has developed through history.2. For a manager it is essential to appreciate the fundamental difference between inside- and outside-the-box innovation; each one needs its own specific management process.3. The main roles of the innovation manager are managing the innovation funnel, executing the innovation strategy and optimising the value of the innovation portfolio.4. Entrepreneurship is the key resource in innovation and the right conditions have to be created for it to flourish in large companies.5. The value of innovation can be assessed as an option value and in creating intellectual capital for the company.6. Integrating sustainable development in the innovation process requires changes in the management process, in the assessment and valuation of innovation, and in the interaction with the stakeholders.