A series of company seminars on Management of Innovation & Technology in the Process Industri
Enhance your corporate innovation management skills and organizational capabilities with the Innovation Academy. The overall purpose of the Innovation Academy is to give the participants improved theoretical and operational knowledge regarding the management of innovation and technology in the process industries. The key objectives are:
To create a consensus on important company innovation management issues drawn from individual studies and interactive discussions during the seminars.
To develop an action plan for improved company innovation management best practices and a foundation for individual further studies.
Management of Innovation in the Process Industries – Setting the stage
While different sectors of the process industries share many characteristics related to their production system, the nature of the production systems in the process industries significantly differs from that of other manufacturing industries. Products manufactured in the process industries are not assembled components but rather relatively homogeneous entities, and their inherent structures often determine their functionalities for the customers.
The environment for product pre-development activities and early experiments in the process industries is a laboratory, whereas pre-development in other manufacturing industries occurs in a design office. Furthermore, the interdependency between product and process development (i.e., “the process embodies the product”) makes the development and design of a new or improved product in reality the development of a new or improved production process. As a result, management best practices, which are particularly related to innovation and production management in other manufacturing industries, are of less interest for the process industries, while management practices in one sector of the process-industrial cluster of industries are likely to be most interesting to many, if not all.
This Innovation Academy is tailor-made to the process-industrial environment, and the seminars address the unique innovation management best practices and methodologies relevant to the Process Industries. The advantage of the in-house Innovation Academy is that the program can be not only tailored to your company’s specific needs but also adapted to your company’s specific process-industrial environment. Furthermore, the confidentiality aspect of in-house learning is also important in R&D organizations, where an open atmosphere for sharing knowledge is vital.
A company Innovation Academy – the blinab way
The program is developed and planned together with one representative from the company R&D organization , giving us an opportunity to understand the specific needs of the R&D organization within its operating context. Alternative topical areas of Innovation Management can then be discussed in order to tailor a program to the needs of management team in an “à la carte” approach.
As another option, a selection can be made directly by you from exploring our areas of expertise presented on our website, alternatively from the following list of optional topics, or by us in one of our pre-set “menus”:
Innovation strategy development and corporate innovation culture
Managing process innovation – from idea generation to implementation
Managing product innovation of non-assembled products
Application development – adding value to customer products and production systems
Success factors and key performance indicators (KPI) for innovation
An Innovation Academy usually includes three to six bi- or tri-monthly in-house one-day seminars in the course of one year. The academy form of learning is in the spirit of HAGAKURE (the book of the samurai), relying on “learning through discussion” of selected topics but also on complementary individual studies of selected papers and books between seminars. The Innovation Academy is planned and implemented in your organization by Prof. Dr. Thomas Lager, an experienced scholar and management consultant in the area of Innovation & Technology Management in the Process Industries. The working language can be either Swedish or English.
ACADEMY: An institution of higher learning (Plato’s school of Philosophy, founded 385 BC at Academia)