2025 India National Productivity Week - 12 - 18 February Theme - From Ideas to Impact: Protecting Intellectual Property for Competitive Startups.
The theme for Productivity Week 2025 provides a crucial platform to address the interconnected challenges and opportunities related to innovation, intellectual property (IP), and productivity within the Indian startup ecosystem.
For industrial engineers innovation and productivity are important themes to focus on. IEs have to organize events, participate in the event actively and promote industrial engineering as the department, function and discipline to promote productivity through innovation.
I am collecting background material to support industrial engineers in preparing for the events of the week.
Background Material - 2025 India National Productivity Week - February 12- 18, Theme - From Ideas to Impact: Protecting Intellectual Property for Competitive Startups.
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2025/01/background-material-2025-india-national.html
Innovation on the Production Line - Process innovations - Role of Operations
Part of Total Innovation Management - Introduction
https://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2025/01/total-innovation-management-introduction.html
Chapter contents
Operations management 156
The nature of design and innovation in the context of operations 157
Design requirements 158
Design and volumes 160
Craft-based products 162
Design simplification 163
Reverse engineering 163
Process design 164
Process design and innovation 166
The relationship between product and process innovation 168
Managing the manufacturing: R&D interface in process industries 168
Stretch: how innovation continues once investment is made 168
Innovation in the management of the operations process 169
Triggers for innovation 170
Design of the organisation and its suppliers: supply chain management 175
Business process re-engineering (BPR) 178
Lean innovation 179
Case study: Innovation on the production line 180
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Learning objectives
When you have completed this chapter you will be able to:
● recognise the importance of innovation in operations management;
● recognise the importance of sales volume in product design;
● recognise the importance of design in the process of making and delivering a product or service;
● appreciate the different relationships between product and process innovation;
● recognise that much innovation is not patentable; and
● provide an understanding of a number of approaches to design and process management.
Making the resources available to continuously innovate and improve the service to customers and developing new markets for products is a difficult and complex task.
Operations management is about the control of a conversion process from an input to an output.
A large percentage of the asset base of the organisation normally lies within the functional boundaries of operations, and it is essential that the assets be used to effect, to gain an advantage in this increasingly competitive world. In particular, the degree of innovation involving these expensive assets is crucial, if the organisation is to prosper.
The nature of design and innovation
Some innovations are described as ‘leading edge’ and are based upon work from within the R&D laboratories and may involve patent applications. Innovation may also be a new application of an existing technique to a different situation. Something that is new and innovative to one company may be a tried and tested procedure or product to another. Also, every innovative idea may not be suitable to patent but, to those concerned, the novelty, the ingenuity, the problems associated with its introduction and the cost–benefit to the organisation may be just the same.
Large and significant improvements can be followed by incremental and less spectacular innovations and improvements, but senior managers and company directors must be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both.
Design
Designing and inventing are different in kind. Design is usually more concerned with the process of applying inventions to specific situation. The invented device or machine has to be scaled to fit the situation. Design is also a compromise between the different elements that constitute the design. For example, increasing the wall thickness of a product made from steel may increase the product’s strength, reliability and durability, but only with the consequential increase in product weight and cost.
Design simplification
The purpose of design is to develop things that satisfy needs and meet expectations. By making the design such that the product is easy to produce, the designer enables the operation to consistently deliver these features. If the product is simple to make, the required quality management procedures will be less complex, easy to understand and, therefore, likely to be more effective. If a design is easy to make, there will be fewer rejects during the manufacturing process and less chance that a substandard product reaches the customer.
Innovation within the manufacturing function involves searching for new ways of saving costs in the manufacturing process and is a continual process, and the closer designers work with operations and marketing personnel, the more likely the organisation is to succeed.
Process design
The process design is based on the technology being used within the process. The metal-forming processes, the chemical processing industry, the plastic material processing and electronic assembly are all sophisticated subjects with their own literature.
Process design and innovation
There can be few who doubt the importance of process innovation to the firm.
Famous examples, such as Ford’s Model T production line, and Pilkington’s float glass production process have shown clearly that when it comes to delivering benefits to the firm it is process innovations that can generate enormous wealth for the firm.
Process innovation has received much less attention than product innovation in the literature on innovation management. This may be because product innovations are visible, whereas process innovations frequently are invisible. Indeed, Rosenberg argued that process innovations have been subsumed into treatments of productivity and that many of the process innovations that firms make are silent, requiring little strategic decision making (Rosenberg, 1982). It is, therefore, not surprising that the following idiom often is quoted in the industry: ‘Product innovations are for show whereas process innovations are for dough.’
Process innovations are an important source for increased productivity and they can help a firm gain competitive advantage. The introduction of a cost-reducing process often is accompanied by changes in product design and materials, whilst new products frequently require the development of new equipment.
The relationship between product and process innovation
In a major review of the constructs of product and process innovations, Simonetti et al. (1995) conclude that 97 per cent of innovations incorporate product and process innovation attributes.
Process innovation can be defined as new activities introduced into a firm’s production or service operations to achieve lower costs and/or produce higher quality product Many activities and improvements in processes may go unnoticed. Changes in the production process of a cereal box that reduces costs by 10 per cent would not be noticed by end consumers; but certainly it would benefit the firm.
Innovation in the management of the operations process
The task of all managers is to improve their operation – otherwise they are supervisors and do not justify their job title. New, innovative ways of working within the operations process to gain competitive advantage is, therefore, part of every operations manager’s duties. The question often is how to start? How to trigger off an investigation resulting in an improvement?
To identify techniques or triggers to help this improvement process, a number of these triggers are discussed in the following sections.
An excellent starting point for all analysis is the customer. Quality performance is the key operations management responsibility and innovation to help improve quality performance is critical to all organisations.
Triggers for innovation
Gap analysis
In order to design quality products and services, it is necessary to fully understand your customers and their expectations.
Expectations change over the period. Twenty-five years ago, teachers used acetates and overhead projectors in the classroom. Today’s students expect a computer-generated image (for example, PowerPoint) presentation with the occasional video/CD clip to illustrate the lecture, i.e. the student expectations and requirements have increased with time.
A technique used to aid understanding of the differences (or gaps) between the customer and producer view or experience of a product or service is called ‘gap analysis’.
Industrial Engineering - Product and Process Improvement
Industrial engineering emerged out of the efforts of ASME in the area of cost reduction. F.W. Taylor is called father of industrial engineering. It conducts product improvement studies and process improvement studies. Processes are documented first and are subjected to gap analysis or opportunity analysis. All persons connected to the product or process concerned are invited to study the process documentation and presentation and provide suggestions and ideas with potential to improve. These studies provide triggers for ideas for innovation.
Quality circles and process improvement teams
A quality circle is a small group of voluntary workers who meet regularly to discuss problems (not necessarily restricted to quality matters) and determine possible solutions. The quality circle concept was developed from the ideas of Ishikawa in the 1960s to promote reading of quality magazine specially created for supervisor in Japan. Most people are expert in their job and appreciate this being acknowledged. Members of quality circles are given training in quality control and evaluation techniques. An idea coming from a member of the quality circle is far more likely to be adopted by the shop floor team than an idea imposed from above. Quality circles, therefore, reflect and exploit the advantages of the human resource theories embedded in employee participation and empowerment approaches. Furthermore, the recognition by senior managers that the employees are worth listening to helps to improve the total quality ethos of the company with beneficial effects on the company and its customers.
Since their introduction it is estimated that over 10 million Japanese workers have been part of a quality circle with an average saving of several thousand US dollars. The later term ‘process improvement team’ was used (amongst others) to reflect the need to look at all aspects of the process being considered. There has been adoption of the quality circle approach by organisations in Europe and the United States, but some argue that the cultural and adversarial differences between management and unions have inhibited the success of the approach in certain situations. However, quality circles can be a rich source of innovative solutions to problems and cost savings and patent applications may follow.
Total quality management (TQM)
First introduced by Armand Feigenbaum in the 1950s and then developed and refined by others (including Crosby, Deming, Ishikawa and Juran), TQM became defined as:
An effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organisation so to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allows for full customer satisfaction.
(Feigenbaum, 1986: 96)
For a TQM approach to be successful, all the staff in all departments have to be involved. Quality is the responsibility of everyone and not exclusively of some other manager or department. Quality and employee improvements are, therefore, inextricably linked and should be part of a continuous cycle. If a modest innovative and improvement cycle continues, by embedding the approach in the culture of the organisation, the long-term and total result may be substantial and even exceed that of radical solutions provided by specialist innovation departments. Both in combination will provide a great advantage to the orngaization.
Much of the improvement in the reliability of cars over the past 20 years has been attributed to a very large number of incremental improvements initiated by thousands of employees in all the car manufacturing companies and their suppliers especially within Japan.
TQM, with its continuous improvement, employee involvement and process ownership, has shown itself to be an effective policy in managing organisations, and it was made possible by the enthusiastic implementation.
Quality function deployment (QFD)
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a structured approach to this problem that relates the voice of the customer to every stage of the design and the delivering process. In particular, QFD:
● promotes better understanding of customer demands;
● promotes better understanding of design interactions;
● involves operations in the process at the earliest possible moment;
● removes the traditional barriers between the departments; and
● focuses the design effort.
The ISO 9000 approach
In 1994 the International Standards Organization ISO 9000 – a set of standards governing documentation of a quality programme were published. A qualified external examiner checks that the company complies with all the requirements specified and certifies the company.
the ISO 9000 (2000)1 was developed to include four additional principles:
● quality management should be customer-focused;
● quality performance should be measured;
● quality management should be improvement-driven;
● top management must demonstrate their commitment to maintaining and continually improving management systems.
The EFQM excellence model
In 1988, 14 leading Western European companies formed the European Foundation for Quality Management and gave an award for the most successful application of TQM in Europe. In 1999, this idea and model was refined and developed into the EFQM Excellence Model that reflected the increased understanding and emphasis on customer (and market) focus and is results-oriented. The underlying idea is that results (related to people, customer, society and key performance) are achieved through a number of enablers in managing and controlling the input/output transformation processes involved.
Performance measurement is by self-assessment, which EFQM defines as ‘a comprehensive, systematic, and regular review of an organisation’s activities and results referenced against a model of business excellence’.
the EFQM excellence model also embeds innovation and learning in the performance of the organisation
Design of the organisation and its suppliers: supply chain management
Delivering prompt, reliable products and services cost-effectively form part of most organisations’ strategic plan. The term supply chain management describes the system of managing all the activities across company boundaries in order to drive the whole chain network towards the shared objective of satisfying the customers.
Material (or information) flows through a series of operations in both directions and the principles of operations management apply.
Increasingly, organisations concentrate on their core activities and subcontract more of their support activities to their suppliers. In many situations, these suppliers are global and supply chain management has become a key strategic issue for many organisations.
Inclusion of suppliers in design activities is a new practice. Much of the improvement in car design has been at the initiative of their suppliers. With the involvement of suppliers in the new product development process, it has also been found that more cost-effective designs have been created . For a company to achieve its own quality goals it must consider the quality of the product from its suppliers and the suppliers’ own quality control procedures. Successful supply chain management is, therefore, very dependent on good network coordination mechanisms, business relationships and information technology. For example, large organisations may help their smaller suppliers with training in quality circles.
The competition is becoming essentially the efficiency of one supply chain versus another. Only by working together and innovating within the organisation’s supply chain, in terms of product and service, will the organisation survive.
Business process re-engineering (BPR)
The radical breakthrough approach of business process re-engineering (BPR) is first attributed to Hammer (1990). The technique is a blend of a number of ideas found within operations (process flow-charting, network management) and the need for customer focus. These were brought together to define BPR as:
The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. This radical rethinking is facilitated by a technology with the potential to provide dramatic improvements.
In the 1980s, BPR techniques were used extensively in the IT industry when the cheap and progressively more powerful networked PC began to replace mainframes.
Lean innovation Lean principles are derived from the Japanese manufacturing industry. The term was first coined by John Krafcik in his 1988 article, ‘Triumph of the Lean Production System’. The term described the low inventory system of Toyota.
Lean manufacturing or lean production is described as a systemic method for increasing flow in the system or value stream. At a more detail level, the elimination of waste within a manufacturing process is advocated.
More recently, the concept of lean innovation has been gathering interest from firms around the world. Lean innovation embraces a philosophy of not letting perfection get in the way of progress. It leverages the Pareto principle that 20 per cent of a product’s features will most likely deliver 80 per cent of the benefits sought by customers. Google has been practising lean innovation without realising it. Google, for many years, has released so-called ‘beta’ products to its consumers. For example, for many years, Google Scholar was used by many research students, even though it was not yet complete and probably contained some software errors. A definition of lean innovation is creating a new product or process, including the work required to bring an idea or concept into a final form, with emphasis on identifying and creating the value and removing the waste of the new product development (NPD) process.
As an approach, lean innovation has a simple straightforward, step-by-step methodology that makes it relatively easy to explain and to implement:
● Identify the minimal viable product.
● Develop a version rapidly and test it with customers, ideally in a real-world competitive situation.
● Repeat the process until the core product is competitive or pivot to explore a new approach.
Many argue that conventional approaches to product development in which teams expend enormous effort trying to create a perfected product without sufficient in-market customer feedback. The resulting new products are often too expensive, too complicated, too different from what customers want, and sometimes end up being too late to market.
Early reviews of firms that have adopted lean innovation techniques seem to show that it helps to create a better environment for learning market requirements. It helps to focus on the most important product attributes initially and encourages rapid cycling of trial and error based on customer involvement. In other words, lean innovation is not a better innovation process; rather it can be a more efficient learning process of the market needs.
Chapter summary
The involvement of design and operations employees and managers is, thus, seen as an essential part of innovation management. Often, by understanding the basics of good design by, perhaps, ‘keeping things simple’ and looking at your products and services as your customers receive and use them, will help to deliver a continual stream of new product and service improvements. Continuous redesign of the company and its products and service, listening to your customers, watching your competitors, keeping aware of inventions and emerging technologies is a daunting task. Apart from fitting the various departments and functions together as a team, a resonance has to be developed across all the constituents of the design and production spectrum to keep innovation going every day in the organization.
