The Boeing debacle: Seven lessons every CEO must learn

This article by Steve Denning published by Forbes is doing the rounds at present. It's highlighting the mechanical problems faced by the 787s that is costing Boeing more money on a project that was already over budget. But it's not specifically a Boeing bashing piece.

It highlights the 787 project as one example as part of the broader issue of offshoring.

1. Use the right metrics to evaluate offshoring
2. Review whether earlier outsourcing decisions made sense
3. Don't outsource mission-critical components
4. Bring some manufacturing back
5. Adequately assess the risk factors of off-shoring
6. Adequately value the role of innovation
7. Get to the root of the problem: maximising shareholder value

You can read the whole article here and while I believe it provides a good rationale for approaching the question of offshoring for enterprises, it also provides some good foundations for an industry policy.

Top 100 innovation articles for 2012

Happy 2013! I thought I'd start the year by looking back at some of the great innovation content from 2012. Innovation Excellence has profile the 100 best innovation articles from 2012. Click here to read their whole  list.

Suffice to say, there is a wealth of content here for any business wanting to improve, however even just the Top 10 prove interesting reading:

1. Beyond Stage Gate – Repeating Disruptive Innovation – by Jose A. Briones, Ph.D.
2. Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2011
3. The Rise of Social Innovation – by Nicolas Bry
4. Five Tech Trends Impacting Business Innovation in 2012 – by Tim Sweeney
5. Has Microsoft Leapfrogged Apple – by Greg Satell
6. 10 Success Principles of Apple’s Innovation Master Jonathan Ive – by John Webb
7. Tips for Crowdsourcing, Innovation, and Savings – by Jessica Day
8. Boosting Personal Innovation Capacity – Iterate! – by Dennis Stauffer
9. What’s the Difference between Creativity and Innovation? – by Paul Sloane
10. Top 50 Innovation Tweeters

It's great reading I hope you enjoy.

Manufacturing and innovation - tied together

Detroit is synonymous with the US auto industry and as such, experienced the worst of the industry's downturn over the past 30 years. So you may be excused for thinking an article on manufacturing from The Detroit News may carry baggage, but the author Mark Benvenuto uses the past troubles as a good example of the importance of an intrinsic link between innovation and manufacturing.

The most salient point for me was the theory that didn't work - namely the practice of shipping production overseas, whil hoping to retain the idea factories locally.

"To believe that is to misunderstand something fundamental: many of the most valuable innovations happen close to production, where scientists, engineers and researchers have tangible problems before them to solve."

He also mentions an admirable initiative from the American Chemical Society, which is awarding chemical scholarships to encourage innovation and job creation in the chemical sciences.

There are plenty of lessons we can learn from Detroit.

Click here to read the full article.

Avoiding innovation's terrible toll

A really interesting article from the Wall Street Journal.

The article says corporations are more vulnerable than you think - if they are older than 40 years they are doing well, and importantly innovating well. The article discusses what has kept IBM alive for over 100 years and what is keeping Apple and Google at the top of their game.

Click here to read the full article.

To Innovate We Must Make

While this has a distinctive US flavour, it does reinforce the inextricable linkage between manufacturing and innovation. The post comes from John B Rogers on INC.

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One of my favorite quotations is from Thomas Edison, who said the "value of the idea lies in the using of it." I never understood it as deeply as a student, but now running a car company in America today, I see the brilliance of Edison's simple aphorism shining through.

Innovation—the art of coming up with something that, moments before, was not there—is a mercurial process. Just look around today at the country's fastest-growing companies, you see a new kind of CIO springing up. Not the "information"-warden-type CIO, but rather, a Chief "Innovation" Officer. It's a sign that corporations and governments are wringing their hands and sharpening their focus, all on the hunt for new ideas.
Click here to read the full article.

Does manufacturing have a future in Australia?

Following is an article taken from The Conversation - http://www.theconversation.edu.au/ and provides some great insights into the importance of the industry as a generator of R&D and expertise and a key enabler for other industries.

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Does manufacturing have a future in Australia?

This question has now been brought sharply into focus, as industry leaders and unions pressure the Federal Government to consider new measures to safeguard Australia’s struggling manufacturers, and a pessimistic outlook takes hold.

In addition, recent downsizing and closures of major facilities such as BlueScope’s export operations at Port Kembla raise the further question of whether a amanufacturing decline matters to us anymore.
The current squeeze on manufacturing is seen by the Productivity Commission, Reserve Bank and financial market commentators as inevitable “structural change” by which productive inputs are reallocated to the resource sector to achieve a higher return.

Read the full article by clicking here.

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