C. M. Chang

ENGAGING THE CREATIVE MINDS — THE ENGAGE MODELS

All enterprises need creativity and innovation to maintain and sustain long term profitability. This paper advocates the rapid development of the creative process by applying an ENGAGE model. In order to frequently generate new ideas, creative people need to pursue new thinking strategies, which are outlined by a second ENGAGE model. It is believed that by consistently emphasizing both the creative process and the thinking strategies outlined in these two ENGAGE models, individuals and companies could become inventive and innovative much sooner than otherwise, thus contribute more effectively to the wellbeing of their enterprises and to the society at large.

THE CREATION OF NOVEL AND MARKETABLE SERVICE IDEAS

Novel and marketable service ideas are useful to most service enterprises. However, the literature has identified several reasons for innovations in services as lagging behind those in manufacturing. Some service enterprises believe that service ideas and innovations are readily imitated by competitors. Others view the impact of service innovations on profitability difficult to assess because specific innovative service elements are typically bundled with many other service elements when delivered to or used by customers. Some service enterprises do not have in-house groups specifically dedicated to innovative pursuits, making it difficult for them to systematically produce new service ideas. Furthermore, because services are usually produced and consumed concurrently, any failure tends to expose the service enterprise immediately, unlike the manufacturing companies which can minimize such risks of exposure by conducting pilot testing away from the marketplace. As a result, many service enterprises are said to shy away from aggressively pursuing new service development projects. It does not have to be this way.This paper describes the combinatorial, heuristic, and normatively guided method, which when correctly applied to a service enterprise enhances the generation of new service ideas in a systematic, speedy, and cost-effective manner, and without requiring the creation of a dedicated and rigid organizational structure. Virtual teams of the stealth type are set up to address innovation needs related to marketability and cost competitiveness. These teams may include frontline customer-facing employees as well as customers, suppliers, and other external experts, who can work together despite geographical and time-zone constraints. The application of this method toward developing a specific new service idea is discussed in greater detail.The integration of a stealth team can also be readily applied to the front end of a typical stage-gate service development process, whereby parallel teams are engaged to address critical issues and steps needed to successfully market a service idea before initiating costly development, thereby raising the service enterprises overall probability of developing commercially successful new services over time.

Collaborative, heuristic and normatively guided techniques to creativity

Societies and companies need innovations to advance and sustain long-term profitability. Innovations, on the other hand, need creativity, for which teams are typically utilized to take advantage of the multiple perspectives and divergent experience it could offer.This paper suggests the collaborative, heuristic and normatively guided techniques, which could be used to promote creativity in teams. They consist of (1) combining a multi-round Delphi technique with a series of thinking strategies (e.g., brain-storming, divide-and-conquer, deepsmart, etc,) that are to be applied by team members, (2) changing the level of abstractions to alter team members perspectives, (3) guiding the collaborative idea creation process with customized questions to retain focus, and (4) pruning the multi-round outcomes to focus efforts on increasingly novel ideas. The principal advantages of these techniques lie in its capabilities of (1) processing a number of desirable rounds, (2) being self-directed and highly cost-effective, (3) invoking a multi-mode of thinking patterns, (4) assuring the outcomes being mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, (5) allowing busy knowledge workers to participate, (6) creating an internally competitive environment to induce creativity, and (7) applying readily in global settings absent of geographical and time-zone constraints. This set of techniques has seen limited testing in classroom settings so far. Preliminary results indicate that they appear to be quite useful in creating new ideas to improve existing products and services.

Web-based tools for product development

In the increasingly dynamic and challenging marketplace of the new millennium, many global companies must pursue operational excellence in order to make products and services better, cheaper and faster, and to gain and maintain short-term profitability. This paper discusses a number of web-based tools that may be advantageously applied to foster the companies effectiveness in product development. Also presented are several factors deemed to be essential in product development, such as communications, information sharing, collaboration, design verification, configuration management and team management. The paper then elucidates the specific features of these tools, their vendors and the websites where additional information may be obtained. Furthermore, those industrial companies that applied these tools to derive benefits and the extent of these achievable benefits are also illustrated. Engineers are uniquely qualified to contribute to the product development efforts of many global companies. They play a vital role in helping their employers meet the product development challenges of the new millennium.

VALUE ADDITION TO TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS: THE SIX-DIMENSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

The dawn of the new millennium is uniquely characterized by the rapid advancement in technologies and tectonic change in global markets. This paper enumerates on opportunities for engineers to add value to technology organizations, such as e-transformation, web-based tools, product development, innovations, and management of global supply chains. These opportunities entail challenges in six dimensions, namely inside, outside, present, future, local and global; they are linkable to stakeholders value. Engineering managers need to emulate specific personal strategies in order to seize these value-addition opportunities and convert them into business profitability for their technology organizations.

Engineering management in developing economies: The EMIDE strategies to meet the new challenges

Globalization is here to stay, as United Nations predicts that by 2020 four of the five largest national economies will be located in Asia. Some developing countries in South America and Eastern Europe are also expected to advance their economies rapidly in the near future. It was forecast by Goldman Sachs that the GDP of BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will surpass that of G6 (United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and Italy) in year 2038. During this rapid advancement period, engineering managers in the West will play different roles than those in the East. Managers in the West will surely try to explore the high growth mid-tier market opportunities offered in the East. This paper offers a comparison between the economies of the West and East, discusses the different business models the West and East apply, and highlights the new challenges ahead. A set of new EMIDE strategies are then suggested for engineering managers in developing economies to meet the new challenges ahead. These strategies include: (1) Excel in internalizing conditions and acquiring unique insights related to local culture, custom and business practices (e.g., value of employees, nature of collectivist, power distance, practices of uncertainty avoidance, and femininity styles), (2) Manage local resources (e.g., assemble product with low cost labor, improve products by reverse engineering) and practice engineering management functions effectively, (3) Innovate differentiable capabilities by practicing creative thinking strategies, pursuing open innovation paradigm, assembling new knowledge bases, and applying expertise residing in regional supply chains, (4) Develop marketable product/service offerings well-suited to targeted market segments, considering the needs and affordability of local customers, and (5) Effectuate a fast response to marketplace challenges by taking advantage of acquired global market knowledge (e.g., internal globalization orientation and external globalization drivers) to achieve long- term profitability. Companies in the West will pursue the new growth markets in the East. The suggested EMIDE strategic model of acting locally and thinking globally assists engineering managers in the developing economies to successfully capture these new growth opportunities and expand beyond.

Engaging the Creative Minds: The ENGAGE Models

Companies need creativity and innovation on a continuous basis to achieve and sustain long term profitability. Research literature indicates that it usually takes about 10 years for individuals to amass diversified experience, acquire deep insights and apply their knowledge effectively in order to become productive in the pursuit of invention and innovation. It would be of great value to our society if individuals creative and inventive minds could be actively engaged to significantly shorten this development period. This paper advocates the possibility of systematically expediting the development of this creative process by applying the ENGAGE model. The model consists of (1) Excite the inquisitive and curious minds with external stimuli, (2) Nurture different thinking strategies to produce new ideas beyond the conventional, (3) Gain new information and perspectives by evaluating data with new ideas (4) Apply insights and interpretations to glean new knowledge from information, (5) Grow new wisdom from processing and distilling new knowledge, and (6) Empower new wisdom to procreate creative and innovative outcomes. In order to frequently generate new ideas, creative people need to pursue new thinking strategies, which are outlined by a second ENGAGE model: (1) Explore Metaphors and analogies, (2) Notice lessons from failures and mistakes, (3) Garner divergent perspectives, (4) Adopt idea combinations, (5) Go after intellectual prompts, and (6) Envision relationship graphically. Having a preponderance of creativity and innovation is no longer opulence, but a necessity for many enterprises to survive in todays marketplace. It is believed that by consistently emphasizing both the creative process and the thinking strategies indicated in these two ENGAGE models, individuals and companies could become inventive and innovative much sooner than otherwise, when pursuing either the traditionally closed or the newly promoted open innovation paradigm, or both, and contribute more effectively to the wellbeing of their enterprises and to the society at large.

Engineering Management In Developing Economies: The Emide Approaches To Meet The New Challenges

The pace of globalization is accelerating. It has been forecast that the Gross Domestic Products of the BRIC nations are expected to surpass those of the G6 countries by 2038. Regional economies will change rapidly, suggesting that engineering managers in the East will need to take different approaches to achieve success in the marketplace. This paper outlines five specific approaches, which constitute the EMIDE model, for engineering managers in the East to customize their engineering management practices, in order to capture these new growth opportunities, to expand beyond their local regions and to meet the challenges ahead.