Definition of an Idea Management System.

An idea management system is simply defined as a wholistic methodology for collecting, filtering, and implementing ideas. Traditionally, these systems were paper based and required great manual effort to manage. In the 1990s organizations began using spreadsheets and databases to help record and catalog ideas, however these early "digital"...

Read More

Many heads are better than one.

I came across this article on crowdsourcing, and how the old saying “two heads are better than one” is as true as ever. “The more heads, the better” is probably the modern day version of this. In the past, and innovation experts will agree, too many heads created too much useless information and idea clutter (aka – noise), so limiting brainstorming...

Read More

The Best Engineers (Your innovation goldmine)

It is sometimes said that your best engineers are the workers running your production lines every day. Most of these engineers don’t have engineering degrees or for that matter college degrees, but they can probably solve some of the biggest problems facing your organization. If not asked, the knowledge of these ‘engineers’ will be invisible and...

Read More

Capture Lean Manufacturing ROI.

Recently I came across this article in Plastic News that struck me as odd, but offered an opportunity to communicate the importance of a solid idea management system in order to maximize the benefits of your continuous improvement process. But first, I must add that I was a bit baffled by the inclusion of Six-Sigma in the whole ‘ROI’ question...

Read More

Still having doubts about the Toyota Production System’s benefits?

Several years ago Toyota went through one of the worst stages of its history. Just as the world was in the midst of a financial crisis, we all started to hear about runaway Toyotas and brake failures. TPS and Lean Manufacturing came under the microscope like never before, and many, specially the media, opportunists, the U.S. government (trying everything...

Read More

Yokoten – Finding the holy grail of the Continuous Improvement process.

Yokoten , (loosely defined) is the reapplication of a solution to similar problems in different areas. This essentially boils down to a ‘teaching’ process, and how solutions are ‘taught’ across an organization so that team members can apply and improve upon the acquired knowledge. To me, the holy grail of the continuous improvement process is simply...

Read More

Make sure Continuous Improvement and Innovation are never ending cycles.

No company should be doing business if they don’t ensure Continuous Improvement and Innovation initiatives are never ending cycles. In short – never ending cycle – means that a company needs to do what it can to out-do itself! A recent article in Bloomberg highlights the predicament BlackBerry got into by not doing this. They disrupted the...

Read More