| ____________________________________________________________________________ Volume 8 Issue 2 www.indutech.co.za
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| In this issue - European Partners | Dear First name
2009 has been a year filled with lots of celebrations of excellence, challenges and innovation. We are proud to introduce our 'new look' newsletter to you.
We are in the process of upgrading our newsletter contact list, so if you receive this newsletter in error, we do apologise. You are welcome to Unsubscribe, or Forward to a friend.
Wishing you all the best for the last few weeks of 2009.
Kind regards,
Niek du Preez and the Indutech team
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| | ENGINEERING THE FUTURE PROACTIVELY Letter from the CEO |  | In the previous issue I eluded to the new wave of awareness that innovation and business renewal is becoming a serious focus point of competitive businesses.
This is manifesting in several areas of the new business cycle of recovering from the recession. Let me share just a few of these exciting activities. |
| - Since March Indutech has been commissioned to start innovation fitness and infrastructure improvement programmes in a variety of different industry sectors including a large research department and a financial software development company. We are also interacting with a large cellphone service provider, a large banking institution, several insurance companies and local and American manufacturing companies to apply our innovation improvement technologies in a variety of small, medium and large enterprises.
- We were invited to present innovation management short courses to a number of institutions including a large Life Insurance company in collaboration with a prominent Executive Development Business School and a professional Engineering Institute Conference.
- Early in 2010, similar activities are already scheduled for the International Conference on Competitive Manufacturing, COMA ’10.
- Invitation to present Keynote Papers at Three Conferences locally and an International Academy for Production Engineering in Paris
- An invited paper at a conference for the Automotive Industry last month in Port Elizabeth.
It is clear that competitive South Africa is actively busy with the internalisation of Innovation
Capability within a significant range of industries, sectors and small, medium and large companies alike. It is also clear that a one size fits all approach is not appropriate and that each company, industry and application area deserves to be treated in context and with matching sophistication of appropriate toolsets. To this effect Indutech has completed a significantly comprehensive toolset, the FuGle™, consisting in excess of 100 processes all aligned to support the full innovation life cycle. This Innovation framework also consists of a comprehensive repository of appropriate tools, techniques and templates as well as best practice performance indicators.
This environment provides the backdrop to appropriately configure the innovation infrastructure for a specific company. We look forward to provide this service to clients that are taking their future and the engineering thereof seriously.
Happy innovating!
Kind regards,
Niek du Preez
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| | INDUTECH EXPANDS ITS INNOVATION IMPROVEMENT CAPABILITY WITH NEW PHD Louis Louw
| | | Organisations are required, now more than ever, to grow and mature their innovation capability – the fundamental mechanism by which competitive advantage is created and sustained. It is essential for enterprises to continuously build and improve an innovation capability that is holistic and process oriented – addressing the full innovation life cycle from idea to success.
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According to Hamel [2006] “There is no sausage crank for innovation, but it’s possible to increase the odds of a ‘eureka!’ moment by assembling the right ingredients”. These ingredients are the requirements and practices of organisational innovation capability and, according to Moore [2005]; the essence of which is the same in any organisation. Based on this premise, a PhD research project was conducted by Heinz Essmann from Indutech to identify these generic and fundamental requirements for organisational innovation capability and consolidate them in a so called Innovation Capability Maturity Model (ICMM). This model identifies 3 fundamental areas of innovation capability: - Innovation Process – the practices, procedures, activities, etc. that take ideas and/or opportunities through to concepts, then through development and implementation and eventually to a stage of commercialisation and operation (which may include continuous refinement and optimisation). Basically, it refers to the complete life cycle of innovation.
- Knowledge and Competency – the innovation process requires both specific and broad-based knowledge and competency, whether already within the organisation or still to be developed or acquired. Also included are the associated management requirements for knowledge, competencies as well as technology.
- Organisational Support – the structures, resources, measures, infrastructure, strategy and policies, leadership, etc. necessary to support the process, and knowledge and competency requirements for innovation.
His research has identified 42 crucial requirements for organisational innovation capability that are more detailed than the above-mentioned areas, but remain generic and applicable to enterprises of all sizes and industry sectors. This model significantly enhanced Indutech’s internal capability and value offering by enabling the development of an Innovation Capability Assessment (ICA) that is used by Indutech to understand the situation within an enterprise, i.e. assess its innovation capability and identify strengths and weaknesses. Accompanying the assessment is a methodology for improving the innovation capability within an enterprise once an understanding of the present situation has been established. Heinz started his research as part of a Masters study, but the examiners felt that the work was of such a high standard that it could be upgraded to a PhD. His research was finally completed within only three years at the end of 2008. He will officially receive his PhD in Industrial Engineering from Stellenbosch University in December 2009. |  | Congratulations, Doctor Essmann! We are very proud of you. |
| | | | INNOVATION COURSE Bernard Katz
| | Several months ago Indutech was asked by the USB-ED, the executive development arm of the University of Stellenbosch Business School, to present a one-day course on Innovation. The course was presented, in September 2009, to fifty managers from a leading South African financial services company. The aim of the course was to give the participants both a theoretical base and practical examples of Innovation. The first session covered the theoretical part of the day. The purpose of the session was to provide the participants with the knowledge to develop a common definition of innovation as well as being able to categorise innovations based on innovation type (process, product, strategic), innovation level (incremental to radical) and innovation impact (sustaining to disruptive). The session also covered the importance of institutionalising innovation, the components of an innovation strategy and the high-level steps of an innovation process. Finally the concept of innovation capability or fitness was introduced. Session two kicked off with Indutech providing feedback about the innovation capability assessment completed by the participants in the week before the course. This generated some lively debate about the identified innovation capability strengths and weaknesses and gave the participants a more practical feel for the concept of innovation capability. Next, we presented an innovation capability assessment case study. In the case study we explained how the assessment was conducted, outlined the company’s objectives and internal and external influencing factors, gave an overview of the results and explained how we developed the innovation capability improvement recommendations based on the given information. After a delicious lunch the participants were divided into eight groups. Each group was given a case study in which they had to interpret the information given and then develop a set of innovation capability improvement recommendations following the same approach demonstrated in the case study before lunch. These recommendations were then presented and debated by all the groups. The day ended with a wrap-up of the main issues discussed and an undertaking from the participants to continue working on their innovation capability, based on the lessons learnt during the day. | | | | Heinz Essmann
| | The Indutech team with Prof. Roland Jochem (fourth from left, back row) and Michael Giebel (second from right, back row). | Between the 22nd and 30th of September, our colleagues from the Department of Quality Management at the University of Kassel, Prof. Roland Jochem and Michael Giebel, were roaming our corridors and attending discussions with several objectives in mind. Their visit had the purpose of:
- Marketing a special course in Quality Management with the Stellenbosh University – a course which successful participants are certified as Quality Systems Manager Junior and a well recognised qualification from the German Society for Quality (DGQ). Visit “Short Courses” at www.ie.sun.ac.za for more information.
- Planning an extension of our bilateral research project to integrate Quality Management and Innovation Management methodologies.
- Initiating a proposal for a new bilateral research project that will look at the application and integration of Reliability Principles and Integrated Knowledge Network Theory within the field of Supply Chain Management.
With the enthusiasm brought by Prof. Jochem and Michael, we look forward to our extended and intensified collaboration and the many opportunities that it may bring. | | | The International Conference on Competitive Manufacturing (COMA ‘10) is taking place from 3 to 5 February 2010 in Stellenbosch. The main objective of the conference is to present recent developments, research results and industrial experience related to the improvement of competitiveness in the field of manufacturing. | Download Indutech's latest Innovation Insight.
Sign up for the Innovation Insight. | |
| ©Indutech 2009
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