All Posts Tagged With: "innovation"
How ST Microelectronics Maintains their Edge
Awards, rankings, and scores have long been a means to recognize performance. That performance is driven by motivation; the tangible inspiration that can takes its shape in a framed employee-of-the-month certificate on the wall of a twenty-seventh-floor cubical. Motivation for recognition is what drives employees and executives of companies big and small. Honors keep ambition fresh; they give people something to shoot for. But, it is important for recipients of impressive merit to preserve their worthy reputation––even if down the road, they experience recipient-replacement, over and over.
Thirteen years ago, ST Microelectronics earned the Malcolm Baldrige award for their excellence in manufacturing quality, and since then, the company has yet to reclaim it. Despite dusty traces on their quality credential, ST has been doing remarkably well, financially, having nearly doubled their 2010 revenue last year ($353 to $638 million). Sure, handfuls of companies prosper financially without adherence to quality-excellence––why might ST’s success still have a connection to the Baldrige Criteria?
In a world where smart phones are becoming nearly essential to professional and social life (some may argue for safety, too) there seems to be this (semi)permanent opportunity––in some ways, obligation––for services and providers to constantly improve the make-up of tabs, pads, phones, and computers. That is to say, technology is constantly evolving and improving to a degree where consumers have become experts on a subject that seemed so new …
5Jul2012 | Tom Huizenga | 0 comments | Continued
Acknowledging Innovative Excellence – Henry Ford Health System
Workforce performance is critical for 2011 Baldrige Award recipient, Henry Ford Health System. Encompassed by their professional work ethics, they do a superb job of answering the Baldrige Criteria question in section 5.2, “How does your workforce performance management system support high-performance work and workforce engagement?” Henry Ford Health System’s work improves daily with technology advancing throughout the healthcare industry. Doctors use this new technology to treat diseases like prostate cancer more efficiently. Studies are then practiced to show how effective these new innovations can be.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in U.S. men. Robot assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) is a new procedure that has been pioneered by the Henry Ford Health System in order to minimize the risks associated with what was typically such an invasive surgery. HFHS executed the first ever RARP and was globally recognized for their achievement. With the robots’ help, doctors can now make tiny incisions using minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery. Before this, doctors were making long incisions into the lower abdomen to remove the prostate gland utilizing a procedure called open radical prostatectomy (ORP).
HFHS scientists performed a nationwide population sample in which RARP’s success rates were compared to traditional prostate removal surgical methodologies. 19,278 patients were tested at 647 medical institutions. 11,889 patients were treated with RARP and 7,389 patients were treated with ORP. RARP patients were …
18May2012 | Tom Huizenga | 0 comments | ContinuedAcknowledging Innovative Excellence – Premier, Inc.
Complexity is a fact of organizational life. To succeed in today’s global, competitive, uncertain environment, organizations must accept complexity. The Baldrige Criteria are complex because attaining organizational sustainability in a global economy is not simple.
Premier, Inc. is a healthcare strategic alliance entirely owned by not-for-profit hospitals and health system organizations that operate both hospitals and other kinds of care services. Premier is the second largest of the few nationwide alliances serving not-for-profits. In 2011, they saved $4.2+ billion by improving processes and efficiencies in their care delivery system, which is the equivalent to the average annual salary of 70,015 nurse practitioners.
Premier has no problem answering the Baldrige Criteria questions in section 1.2, ‘How does your organization promote and ensure ethical behavior in all interactions?’ and, ‘How do you contribute to the well-being of your environmental, social, and economic systems?’ Premier operates its corporate headquarters in a LEED certified building; and last year it recycled nearly 150,000 pounds of paper on top of two tons of computers and electronic equipment. The organization also advocates on behalf of its members for healthcare policies that address safe and less toxic practices, including the need for Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) labeling of products and more oversight of industrial chemicals with increased disclosure and promotion of safer alternatives.
Premier uses a green leaf icon to tag “environmentally preferable contracts” from contracted suppliers …
15May2012 | Tom Huizenga | 1 comment | ContinuedSystematic Innovation
This article is the third and final in an on-going series about innovation, by Juran Institute President and CEO, Joseph A. DeFeo.
Innovators are not always born with exorbitant talent. If you have your heart set on being the next Thomas Edison, you are probably going a bit too far. Whatever your innovation quotient is now, you can make it better with practice and by using a methodology that causes innovation to happen.
For instance, how many times do we hear, “Think outside the box”? That’s all well and good, but what box? Few of us recognize that the box is in fact ourselves. Learning to temporarily let go, be foolish for a moment, and be comfortable with ambiguity is necessary for innovation. Getting beyond our “boxed” selves is a skill that can be learned and improved with technique, practice, and courage. For example, imaging oneself as someone else and seeing everything through his or her eyes can be a great technique.
Arriving at this level of letting go will require a systematic methodology. Many methods have been used in developing simpler and better products. These design processes incorporate early involvement teams. The teams are composed of a broad spectrum of employees, customers, and suppliers who work together through a systematic process of looking and thinking outside the box to solve problems. The results are significant, and new products can …
2May2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedTwo Types of Innovation
There are two basic types of innovation. The first, Type I, does happen, but rarely. Type I is something completely new. And new things under the sun do not occur as often as we think they do. The first automobile and internal combustion engine were certainly new innovations, but even they built on the wheel, cart, and other existing technologies.
Things such as nuclear power, radio, phones, electricity in the home, and manned flight are certainly good examples of something that was pretty close to new under the sun. All the great, really new innovations can often be traced back to a genius, a lucky accident, or both.
We know the names of many of the geniuses – Fermi, Wright, Edison, Benz, and Ford. However, this is not an endless list, and while lucky accidents are good, they are too chancy. Type II innovation presents a better way.
Type II innovation is much more common than Type I. This second type can be reduced to three general approaches:
- Making something that already exists larger
- Marking something that already exists smaller
- Combining one thing that exists with something else that exists
The simplicity of Type II is profound. It can create dramatic breakthroughs and change the way we live. Most of what we see and consider as great innovations were derived from the three methods of Type II innovations listed.…
30Apr2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedDesigning for Innovation
In section 4.1 of the Baldrige Criteria, Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management, there is a question under Performance Improvement that asks, “How do you use organizational performance review findings to develop priorities for continuous improvement and opportunities for innovation?” Well, how do you?
Designing for customer needs frequently leads to higher-quality goods and services as well as innovative outcomes because an effective design process uncovers hidden customer needs. This discovery, and the subsequent solving of the problems that kept customer needs hidden, will lead to innovation. Designing innovative and superior quality services and products requires gaining a clear understanding of the customers’ needs and translating those needs into products and services aimed at meeting them. This information can be the driver of innovation; however, most do not recognize it as such.
Innovation has everything to do with creating something new. In competitive business situations success often comes to the best innovators. Many organizations have design and development functions that create annual plans to develop new models and new services. Sometimes these functions design the good or service internally to the organization and then look for customers to sell it to, while other innovation comes from solving societal problems. Additionally, organizations may look for customer problems to solve; as a result they create something new, something innovative. It is the latter that we have found to be the …
27Apr2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | ContinuedLeading the Innovation in Aviation – Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer
Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer have recently signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the development of drop-in, affordable aviation biofuels. These three major airframe manufacturers agreed to seek collaborative opportunities to speak in unity to government, biofuel producers, and other key stakeholders to support, promote, and accelerate the availability of sustainable new jet fuel sources. The significance of this agreement is substantial, considering the size and scope of these organizations. In addition to this collaboration, these airlines are taking initiatives across the board to reduce emissions, increase efforts dedicated to societal responsibility, and slash waste; all of which can be found within the Baldrige Criteria.
“We’ve achieved a lot in the last ten years in reducing our industry’s CO2 footprint – a 45 percent traffic growth with only three percent more fuel consumption,” said Tom Enders, Airbus President and CEO. “The production and use of sustainable quantities of aviation biofuels is key to meeting our industry’s ambitious CO2 reduction targets and we are helping to do this through Research & Technology, our expanding network of worldwide value chains and supporting the EU commission towards its target of four percent of biofuel for aviation by 2020.”
While committing to substantial developments in the biofuel sector, these airframe manufacturers are also attempting to raise the bar through increased R&D efforts and development of value chains. Airbus is …
3Apr2012 | Joseph A. De Feo | 0 comments | Continued
