Over the last few years there has been a growing number of new buzz words, tag lines and acronyms in industry relating to the latest technology and processes:
Virtualisation, industry 4.0, digital twin, augmented reality and-so-on. Last week I had the opportunity to visit a university-based organisation that supports public and private sector organisations with support in these areas and I must say they seem incredibly good at it.
Whilst watching a demonstration of practical VR combined with augmented reality within spatial laser scanned environments (try saying that fast ten times) I thought about how all the current technology and systems relate to me specifically and my business and how it could improve how I develop solutions.
When dwelling on how or if these solutions can bring real world benefit to my business there are a few things I always consider:
• Why? – can these techniques or technology speed up the process.
• Cost? – is there a clear return on investment.
• How? – can I upskill without considerable time and staffing costs
• When? – do I have time to integrate them into my current workflows
I’ve seen it many times when I have been with clients, they take on projects or services because it was the “NEW THING” better than the “LAST THING” it’s like the washing detergent adverts where the “New (Product) 2in1 makes your whites, whiter than the last version” most of the time it’s usually new branding with a slight tweak to the formula.
I know many “good” salespeople who manage to convince client to take “NEXT NEW PRODUCT” without any thought for how it will affect the current systems and processes and if it will integrate with them, I see it most in public sector unfortunately as it is our hard-earned money usually wasted.
When developing a solution, I find it important to consider the life cycle and obsolescence, of any outcome, so grounding a solution in the capabilities of the “Now” creates a foundation for consideration of the “New” do your research see what is on the horizon and consider where we will be in 5 or 10 years from now.
The industrial vending technology I developed in 2009 is still innovative today because I considered the future of inventory management whilst considering the manufacturing techniques of the time. With the improvements made over the last 13 years in 3D printing and fabrication machine technology it is considerably faster and easier to produce new parts and solutions, particularly rapid prototyping.
Most of what we consider New is usually based on Old in a New skinsuit, innovation is not only something intrinsically New but also an improvement to something already established:
Innovation, for its part, can refer to something new or to a change made to an existing product, idea, or field. One might say that the first telephone was an invention, the first cellular telephone either an invention or an innovation, and the first smartphone an innovation. (webster.com)
Having a foot in the past and the future lets us see the intersect between both and helps our clients benefit from our wealth of experience in addition to our bleeding edge ideas.
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