Competitive Quality and Innovation

Pierre Maillard

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781848218208
• eBook ISBN: 9781119137597
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Maschinen- und Anlagebau

The aim of this book is to present new quality practices adapted to the specifics of innovation processes in order to increase their chances of success while also facilitating support of the creators who are often put off by the constraints of traditional quality management methods. These practices are applied in businesses of all sizes who do not want to broadcast on this subject as they are at the center of the factors that make them competitive. These quality approaches, which are specific to each innovation process, rest on a common methodological platform that is at the core of this book.

1
The Innovation Concept

1.1. The characteristics of an innovation process

An innovation process is a production activity which takes place prior to the design process.

We would define such a process in the following way:

An innovation process is the gradual materialization of new ideas guided by the projection of a very uncertain future, in terms of its methods of use and the returns on investment that they will produce.

The process starts with a meeting of “ideas” and “needs” of a population that wishes to carry out a given activity.

The “ideas” refer to using scientific, technological or methodological results from fundamental or applied research, or certain components of products or existing services, in order to create new “features” which respond to specific areas of society not currently covered or not yet catered for well enough. The targeted population of beneficiaries must be sufficiently large and have sufficient financial resources to ensure the expected returns on investment.

These new “features” often lead to changes in the organization of the population which receives the innovation. They can change habits and destabilize the current order. Moreover, satisfying needs by “supplying a service” which includes an innovation can create further needs. A consumer process then develops, and initiates the development of new economic exchanges.

EXAMPLE 1.1.–

Remote cardiology is the result of an idea based on using new information technology to create a permanent connection over large distances, with the use of satellites, between a patient suffering from a serious cardio-vascular illness and a medical team responsible for the patient’s treatment.

The need is clear. The information technology exists. The idea was to connect this technology with medical treatment.

The creation of an innovation process brings together the human resources within a company, which promote the idea, understand the needs and have the skills necessary in the field of information technology.

The way in which the innovation is constructed is dependent on the material resources used (cardiac electrodes, defibrillator, software contained within the defibrillator, transmitter, external switch controlled by the patient, methodology of purchasing satellite services, ergonomic information receiver for cardiologists) and on the way the features of the service are defined (providing the cardiologist with accurate and reliable information for to give a remote diagnosis, locate the patient, get in touch with him quickly, etc.).

The service includes a connection between the patient and a permanent remote supervision service for making a prediagnosis. He transmitted the information at a team of caregivers on the spot for make-out the diagnostic and care.

This new supply of services created through innovation in turn gives rise to other needs regarding remote treatment for the evolution of other illness which require urgent intervention.

As mentioned above, the “promoters” of the ideas and “needs” are part of the human resources responsible for the development of the innovation.

“Innovation” and “innovation process” are terms which are frequently used to express the evolution of the resources that human develops in order to satisfy his needs.

Our goal is to offer a methodology designed to integrate a quality process into an innovation process in order to ensure, over time, the most cost-effective competitiveness possible: from the project which creates the innovation and makes it economically viable, to the production system for the products and services which will benefit from this innovation and, finally, to the products and services when they are brought into the market.

These particular quality processes are known as “competitive quality processes”.

An innovation process can be represented in the following way:

We voluntarily end the innovation process before the decision is taken, by the company management, to implement the innovation by undertaking product or service designs which will incorporate the innovation, and the design of the production system. Here, we depart from the innovation process and start the design process. It is still considered in some companies that the innovation process only ends with an “innovation on the shelf”.

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Box 1.1. Characterization of an innovation process

An innovation process consists of the following steps:

• – deciding to foster new ideas to help the progress of the company;
• – bringing about the emergence of an idea which may provide a response to a need of society;
• – briefly characterizing products or services which could benefit from the innovation;
• – identifying possible clients for these future products or services;
• – characterizing future uses for products or services which would incorporate the innovation;
• – creating experimental drafts which represent the idea as accurately as possible;
• – conducting initial feasibility tests on the future products or services;
• – deciding to initiate prospective studies on how to use the idea to benefit the company;
• – conducting prospective studies on possible socioeconomic uses for the innovation, and its impacts on the company and its position;
• – deciding to guarantee the ability of the company to mobilize the resources necessary, internally and externally, in order to fully realize its innovation process;
• – identifying future stakeholders in the innovation project;
• – conducting studies on the nature and feasibility of exchanges with future stakeholders in the project necessary for it to be fully realized;
• – deciding contractual issues with these stakeholders, and building a processor to carry out the innovation process;
• – building a processor responsible for carrying out the innovation process and an external communication network;
• – deciding to progressively design drafts which give a more accurate representation of the idea;
• – progressively designing these drafts to accurately represent the configuration of the innovation;
• – deciding to carry out prospective studies on the socioeconomic impacts of the future products and services which will incorporate the innovation;
• – progressively designing drafts which give a representation of future products and services to incorporate the innovation, by describing, in particular, the future “interfaces” of the innovation with other components of these products and services;
• – conducting tests on the drafts of future products or services, at various steps in their production, on future clients and on all future stakeholders in the production system for the products and services;
• – conducting performance tests on future products or services;
• – creating a rationale to aid decision-making, which examines the probable socioeconomic impacts of implementing the innovation;
• – deciding to guarantee the ability of the company to adopt a production system for the future products and services;
• – more precisely identifying stakeholders who will contribute to the development and production of future products and services which will incorporate the innovation;
• – designing drafts of the production and distribution systems for the products and services;
• – conducting studies on the ability of the company to design production and distribution systems for the products and services which will incorporate the innovation by taking into account the configurations of the various definitive drafts of the innovation;
• – creating a rationale to aid decision-making, which details the feasibility of implementing the innovation;
• – deciding to validate the innovation;
• – examining the steps to take to ensure the intellectual protection of the innovation.

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COMMENT 1.1.– Each of the previous steps can be carried out several times. An innovation process is carried out “in loops”. It is possible, at any time, to question ideas, observations or previous decisions.

We detail below the meaning of the terms used.

With this representation of an innovation process, it is understood that

An innovation is an original way of developing a socioeconomic activity by attempting to find a new way of satisfying the needs of the society.

There are various definitions for the concept of innovation. It would certainly be interesting to recall them by trying to identify and characterize the points of view which form the basis of such definitions. We leave this work to one side in order to focus on the crux of our question regarding the charac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1: The Innovation Concept
• 2: Competitive Quality of an Innovation
• 3: Competitive Quality Tactics
• 4: The Marketing Quality of an Innovation
• 5: The “Quality” Fuel of an Innovation
• 6: The Emitters of Quality Fuel
• 7: Qualification of Emitters
• 8: Validation of Marketing Quality
• 9: Supervision of Emitters
• 10: Monitoring Perceived Quality
• 11: Ensuring Benefits
• 12: The Role of the Quality Department
• 13: Quality Culture in Project Teams
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement