Improvement and Innovation
Posted : October 11, 2004 at 11:58 am [IST]
Direct labor cost in the US is about $30/hr and in China it’s $2/hr. But despite this much-publicized difference, this can’t be a deterrent. This is what Jimmy Williams, director of development, Alcoa Technical center (Pittsburgh) feels and dismisses those figures. According to him, the problem with manufacturing in USA is not worker wages, but the lack of innovation. US manufacturing needs to take advantage of the many manufacturing technologies now under development.
A four-step progression is followed by most products:
1. Ferment (growing interest in an idea),
2. Dominant design (several try to develop the idea and one becomes the leading concept),
3. Incremental innovation (the leading concept is improved), and
4. Maturity (the accepted design begins to lose dominance).
Williams noted a parallel to this idea in the development of the airplane. First there was an early interest in flight, then the Wright brothers had a successful design. This was followed by the airplane’s evolution from wood to aluminum, then composites as the key structural material.
“When any given technology is improving at a decreasing rate, it’s likely a new technology will emerge to supplant it.” Therefore the key to success is to get into the market with a new idea at the time of transition when it’s possible to supply something that no one else is offering.
But, technology is not always the major issue. “Managing the change in customer preference is often the hardest task.”
Sometimes a major obstacle to innovation is he calls “the competency trap.” It’s when a company has a core competency that has been the key to its success in the past. Managers are, therefore, reluctant to take the risk of pushing into new technologies.
A second stumbling block is the reluctance to take full advantage of new technology. He cites the current push for HSM (High Speed Machining) where, too often, a company will concentrate on a specific problem and ignore the larger opportunities. For example, HSM not only leads to faster production, but can often mean lighter parts, fewer tools needed, the chance to make modules rather than multipart assemblies, plus the many positive changes in machine tool and cutting tool design.
To take advantage of developing technologies Williams suggests:
” Watch for signals of a changing technology.
” Both component and total system changes offer the opportunity for gain.
” Don’t rely on tradition. You can’t count on a company’s established channels for gaging a market because they were not designed for the new technology.
” Be ready to manage change. Timing is everything.
The history of human kind is the history of the improvements and innovations made by it as a continuous process. The nation that was good in it has done well. When it got choked because of any internal and external reasons, it became difficult to survive what to say to grow. We in India must remember this mantra of improve and innovate in every walk of life to grow in face of the competition.
- Indra
Category: Machining |
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