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Before we speak about engineering innovation let’s take a moment to read the definition of engineering according to Wikipedia: Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria.

Like engineering, innovation is a discipline, a body of knowledge you can study, master and apply to various challenges. Using the format above, we might define it this way: Innovation is the discipline and process of applying frameworks and techniques for analysis, practices that stimulate ideation, and methods of prototyping in order to conceive and develop original solutions to problems.

So, innovation is a process (a roadmap) that uses formal techniques and methods (a toolkit) to come up with new ways of meeting needs.

Innovation experts focus on measurement, statistical analysis, and development of reproducible systems of innovation. Teams of innovation experts conduct quantitative research on innovation concepts during the process of creating and commercializing innovations.

How you can structure the Product Innovation Process. In a modern industrial company the design of a new product is not an isolated activity. Product design is embedded in a larger process, which is called ‘product development’. Product development includes the development of a new product together with the plans for its production, distribution and sales. This larger process is also called ‘new business development’. Product development in turn is part of the product innovation process. Product innovation encompasses all activities that precede the adoption of a new product in a market. Thus, innovation comprises the development as well as the realisation of a new product or production process by a company.

A company that wants to innovate must know very well what it wants to achieve. It must produce fruitful ideas for innovation, work them out skillfully into comprehensive plans for action and then realise those plans tenaciously yet flexible.

Product Planning. The first part of the innovation process is called ‘product planning’. In this phase it is decided what product(s) will be developed and when. Product planning has two parts: ‘policy formulation’ and ‘idea finding’.

What a company wants to achieve is shown by its policy. Proclamation of goals only is not enough for a proper policy formulation. What are the strategies for fulfilling the goals? That is the complimentary part of the policy. In product development the product-market strategy (or ‘product-market scope’) lays down the kinds of products the company is going to apply itself to, now and in the future, and the markets it is going to attend. A proper crystallised policy is the basis for the next activity: ‘idea finding’. Before a product can be developed, someone has to come with the idea for it. In a new product idea two elements come together: a technical possibility and a market need.

How does a company find new product ideas? Simply put, this comes to: Keeping informed about markets and consumer needs (external research, opportunities and threats).

Strict development. Promising ideas for new products must be worked out into detailed plans for the product, the production and the sale. This phase is here called ‘strict development’. The plans are developed with the new business idea, as point of departure and it is very important that the plans are properly attuned to one another. To that end the product development process must be arranged ‘concentrically’.

Concentric development means that at first all plans are worked out in outline, to be able to estimate the technical and commercial feasibility of the new business activity as a whole.

By concentric development two important things are achieved. Concentric development prevents that more time and money is spent in the development of eventual ‘non-successful’ product ideas than necessary. Besides that, as concentric development stimulates the interaction between product design, production development and marketing planning, it raises the quality of the product and shortens the lead times.

Realisation. In this phase the detailed plans out of the strict development phase are transformed into reality. This phase includes production, distribution, sales and the actual use of the product.

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