Journal Review: Assessing Engineering Design and Innovation Process

By Qi Dan

EG1471 E25

Innovation plays an important role in today’s engineering design. However, in the paper “Innovation and performance in engineering design”[1], Salter and Torbett indicate that misunderstandings in performance measurement of engineering design do limit the innovative potential in many industries. Some firms focus too much on the financial benefit of their products while ignoring other essentials in engineering design such as user friendliness, safety and durability. Addressing this problem, Salter and Torbett [1] examine different approaches to assess engineering design based on interviews and feedbacks from both individuals and organizations.

First of all, commercial benefit is the most common concern when assessing engineering design as there is a distinct connection between performance failures and economic failures. Meanwhile, some claim that the best engineered product may not be the ones bring the most financial benefit. In this case, too much reliance on financial indicators would probably limit innovation. Furthermore, time as an indicator of performance may also restrict engineers’ creativity and even cause stresses on them. Similarly, due to the failure of current feedback mechanism, engineers have to conform to others’ view sometimes. The three factors discussed above shows that many industries are still in urgent need of an appropriate environment to promote innovation.

Designing is a complex process which involves collaboration between different departments. Although financial factors do create incentive for designing, other methods of performance measurement should also be involved in the process of engineering design. More importantly, to fully assess a product requires a closer interaction between designers and other department of a project.

Reference:

[1] A. Salter and R. Torbett, Innovation and Performance in Engineering Design. Construction Management and Economics. Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2003.

Creativity and Innovation Talk (News Feature)

By Alfred
EG1471 E25

Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr, the Associate Professor from Department of Mechanical
Engineering of the National University of Singapore gave a talk on “Creativity and Innovation” on 28 August 2009. The talk was about how a dream can lead to creativity which in turn developed into an innovation.

Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr started of by showing a video on the various inventions found in our daily life such as refrigerator. It was a video to show that many things were invented over the past centuries to help men solve their problem. With it he left the audience a question about what leads to inventions.

Another video on the inventions of the airplane by the Wrights brother was shown which answer the question the Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr asked earlier on and the answer was dream. He further explained that it was dream that leads to creativity because anything can happen in the dream. For creativity one needs to think out of the box, the dream is the best place for one to do so.

After a dream one will then continue to create the product. According to Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr this product will only become an invention when it is accepted by the general public if not it will always remain as a innovation. He gave the example of Apple’s ipod and Creative’s zen. To illustrate further he also showed various pictures of weird products such as a chin support stand that will allow passenger to sleep while standing on the train.

Lastly, due to the technical failure a video of importance to his talk (according to Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr) was not shown. He ended off with an encouragement for all to continue to dream and one day someone may come out with an brilliant inventions.

How to be creative and finally make an Innovation (brief communication)

based on the presentation "Creativity and Innovation" given by Dr. Marcelo H Ang Jr, the Associate Professor from Department of Mechanical Engineering of the National University of Singapore

by Liu Yangfan
EG1471 E25
Monday, September, 2009

People always say that the world now is so advanced that nothing can be improved. However, it is just on the contrary that our world now is changing at a speed faster than ever and it will never stop.

The power to drive the world keep constantly changing is that people will never stop dreaming. And what makes us keep dreaming is the purpose to make life easier and enjoy life more, both of which will never turn to the end.

Based on what is presented above, we can clearly see that everyone can make a difference because everyone can dream. Dare to dream is the beginning of to be creative. “Everyone can be street smart.”(Marcelo H Ang Jr, 2009) The only thing you need to concern is that do not accept things so quickly, that is to say, do not do something as everyone else is doing it.

However, creativity is necessary but not enough to make an invention. Another essential element needed to make an invention is a good study of different produces and system available. In other words, we should be practical as well as creative. Besides, the most important thing is that this invention must be useable because the reason for an invention to exist is to be used in life and change life. It will be meaningless if a new product is invented while nobody wants to use it in real life. So the cost, practicality and attractiveness of a new invention must be considered carefully. Otherwise, it can only exist in the lab and never be an innovation. Only when everybody is willing to use it can an invention become an innovation and eventually change the world.

All those presented above are based on Dr. Marcelo’s presentation. Actually, I cannot agree with him more. Edison can be everyone. After all, Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.



Reference: NUS WEBCAST LECTURES, EG1471-Guest Lecture, http://ivle.nus.edu.sg/bank/media/modvideo.aspx?KEY=c135ac97-e41a-42eb-a4ee-e48927627e75&ChannelID=30a5e9bc-8fb0-4d9c-b54a-028f2c51cb6d#