Innovation Cycle: A New Model and Case Study for the Invention to Innovation Process, The

Engineering Management Journal, Sep 2005 by Schoen, Jeremy, Mason, Thomas W, Kline, William A, Bunch, Robert M

Abstract:

A new cyclic model for innovation and product development is presented. The model expands upon current linear models and its structure provides insights for technology managers creating new strategies and operating philosophies. Current innovation models are linear and self-contained-all the pieces necessary to finish exist at the start and only time is required to sequentially proceed from one step to the next. The new model is cyclic in nature and includes both invention and innovation cycles with input from many sources. Recommendations developed for technology managers include evaluating their portfolio of technologies and projects to assess their position on the invention to innovation timeline and ensuring the appropriate resources are in place to support further progress. A case study of Rose-Hulman Ventures, innovative incubator/new product development center is also presented. The model, the recommendations and the case study will assist researchers in making decisions about new technologies to investigate, and will assist technology managers in evaluating candidate inventions for commercialization and determining the tactics to best bring them to markets.

Keywords: Innovation, Technological Clusters, Knowledge Transformation, Geographical Clusters

EMJ Focus Areas: Innovation & New Product Development

Technology managers working with new product development projects or trying to utilize the latest technology from universities may not completely understand all of the roadblocks in the invention, innovation, and commercialization process. In addition, there is significant pressure on universities to pursue greater commercialization efforts, as stated by Etzkowitz (1999): "The direction of academic change toward entrepreneurial sciences is constant even if the rate is variable." Technology managers require a comprehensive model of the technology commercialization process to aid in technology selection and project execution. A model of the innovation process has been developed based upon the experiences of the authors who worked in industry and who started and worked in incubators. Definitions of each stage provide a starting point for model development. The model is intended to aid those pursuing a more entrepreneurial approach to utilizing university basic research but may also be helpful to those pursuing new product development from anywhere in the cycle. Senge in The Fifth Discipline tells us:

Systems thinking finds its greatest benefits in helping us distinguish high-from low-leverage changes in highly complex situations. What we most need are ways to know what is important and what is not important, what variables to focus on and which to pay less attention to... (Senge 1990).

The proposed model sits at least one level of abstraction above the project management models discussed next and can aid in assisting the systems thinking described by Senge. The article concludes with suggestions on how the model can help in developing strategies for innovation and managing technology projects.

Project Management Model

There are several models presented in the literature on project management but these models are an incomplete representation of the innovation cycle so not truly helpful to the managers of technology incubators. The most popular of these models include the funnel, the waterfall, the vat, and the cyclical models. A short description of these models is summarized next for comparison to a much more extensive model.

The most restrictive and structurally defined of the project management models is the waterfall model (Paul, 1997). This model is a staged model often used in product development processes where the steps to completion are very well known. This model starts with a well-defined project goal, timeline, and project plan. This model is often called a stage-gate model. At the end of each stage, the project moves through a gate, or review process, to the next phase (or from a pool of water down a waterfall to the next pool of water). Generally, a corporation provides a framework for these development projects providing business models for product sales, a pool of experience, and engineering and manufacturing knowledge within the field to solve the majority of technical problems.

The funnel and vat models are very similar in nature (Dubinskas, 1993). In these models, processes for product development are not necessarily strictly defined like in the waterfall model, yet there is a narrowing of potential possible solutions toward a known outcome. The vat model, compared to the funnel model, allows for more ambiguity through the development cycle. These two models have a linear time component like the waterfall model. As time progresses one singular goal remains in mind and, eventually, possibilities are narrowed to an outcome originally defined at the projects initiation.

The funnel, vat, and waterfall models all start with a very well-defined outcome and proceed toward that outcome while the spiral model is better suited to development cycles where an outcome is not so clear and greater market input is necessary (Boehm, 1988). In this project model, trips around an augerlike spiral work to delve progressively deeper into a customer's (market's) requirements. Each trip around is similar to a waterfall, in that goals for that spiral have a definition, yet the outcome of the project is not necessarily clear from the beginning. At the end of each spiral, the customer provides valuable input on how the next spiral should proceed. This model was originally designed for software development but applies itself well to other forms of development where the market requirements may not be easy to define at project initiation.