How can we Innovate in a Manufacturing Environment?

I sat through two guests speakers the other day, both discussing innovation, but with two very different approaches.

The 1st had developed a program to teach companies how to be innovative, broken the process down into steps and went with the concept of "fail fast, fail cheap".  A very logical approach, and very "engineering minded", of do this and you will be an innovative/creative organization.  The speaker/instructor worked for Proctor & Gamble and developed many new products during his stint there. 

The 2nd discussed innovation as thinking outside the box.  A true creative type, working as a print media designer for companies like John Deere, the NBA, ect.  Much less formal and more "it came to me" and rely on past experiences to come up with new design.

So, two speakers, one pushing innovation as a step by step process, and one pushing it as a broad "think outside the box" approach.  Which is more important and which applies better in a manufacturing company that needs to come up with innovative ideas to survive?

I would argue that both approaches are important, but that neither is grasping the whole picture.  On one hand, creativity has to have limits, we can't live in perpetual brainstorming for all our lives, but at the same time Creativity is not a wholly written process.  In fact, I would say the less guidelines, due dates, criteria we (the leaders) give the happier we will be with the results.

I'll admit it's a hard process to figure out, one that takes a lot of trial and error to do right, but we all have to figure it out...just like lean, each company is different.

But I also believe that much like lean, Innovation can be handled systematically and when innovation is needed it can be conjured from the depths of your employees minds.  Again, each company has to determine how that happens for themselves, and setting strict guidelines on where and how to innovate is probably going to lead to failure.

AF

Study yourself failing

This is a great video posted on "The 99 Percent", http://99u.com, (and it's not the 99 percent your thinking).  Joshua Foer has come up with a neat concept on how to train ourselves to fail...sounds interesting doesn't it?

He starts with a question, who in this room is better at typing today than they where last year?  General answer..."no one".  Its interesting how, even though we do something daily, we are not improving.  Kind of goes against the whole "practice makes perfect".  Other examples are driving, reading, walking.

So why is that? Why do we not get better at something even though we are getting plenty of practice.  What Foer goes on to explain is that our mind sets mental plateaus for success, ie. If I can type 40 words a minute I am fast enough.  But once we have reached that plateaus, our mind no longer tries to overcome obstacles.  We become "satisfied" with our current level.

But how do we overcome this? How do we get better even when we feel our best is good enough?  We have to retrain our minds to not accept where we are today.  If we want to be better at typing, we need to practice typing faster than we are capable...so 60 words a minute with every other word misspelled and illegible.  We are studying failure, or watching ourselves fail, and by doing this we force our mind to overcome the failure.

So how does this apply to lean you ask?  Actually, you probably already know.  Whats the enemy of improvements?...complacency, a general "we are doing fine" attitude.  Getting used to the pace we are at right now.  Unless we can come out of that comfort zone and watch ourselves failing it will be very hard, if not impossible, to improve.

I know in my shop, we are trying to overcome our current tact time by 1 hour...and how do we do this?  We fail, twice a  week.  So two times a week we practice the 1 hour less tact time, and when we have "issues" that do not allow that to happen, we make those "issues" projects that need done!  So far, we haven't found a better way....but i'd love suggestions on the art of failing!34ZD3RWKJPXB

AF