Here shown the Concept Models of Taxi's / Rickshaws for the future transportation.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Five Steps to Profitable Innovation
Innovation is one of the hottest topics in business these days. More and more, companies are coming out with new products and services designed to amaze their customers and get them to dig deeper into their pocketbooks. Only problem is, most of what passes for innovation these days doesn’t stand out as very new, different or compelling. As a result, most innovation efforts are lucky to pay for themselves, much less actually turn a profit.
Five basic steps are:
1. Aim high.
Strive for disruptive, rather than incremental, innovation. Incremental innovation focuses on making small improvements to existing products and services. It adds a few new bells and whistles, but does not significantly alter the product or the perceived value to the customer.
Disruptive innovation creates new products or services that solve customer problems in entirely new and different ways. It fundamentally alters the customer’s perception of value, and can literally turn markets and entire industries upside down. Often, disruptive innovation solves problems that customers didn’t know they had or were unable to clearly articulate.
Most companies are set up, both structurally and philosophically, to pursue incremental innovation. The R&D team strives to extend and improve existing products or services rather than come up with radically new ones. People get rewarded for doing things a little bit faster, better and cheaper, not for shaking up the status quo. Managers are trained to protect and defend the existing brand rather than look for ways to make their own products obsolete.
As a result, the pursuit of disruptive innovation demands a very different way of looking at and managing the innovation process. It involves asking questions like, “What is our goal with innovation? Where do we get new ideas and how do we handle them when they surface? How do we keep up with the changing needs of our customers? How do we determine customer value? How do we reward (or not reward) innovation, and what message does that send to employees?”
Incremental innovation generally costs less and is easier to achieve. But it rarely leads to a position of market leadership. Disruptive innovation takes longer, costs more, and has a much higher failure rate. But when successful, the payoff is huge.
2. Get your customers involved.
A recent study of future mobile phone services compared new product ideas from customers with those put forth by “internal” sources: professional developers and technology experts. Researchers found that the internal experts come up with more new product ideas that had a good chance of actually making it to market. However, customers created more new product ideas that actually solved their problems, a major factor in determining perceived value.
Getting customers involved in the creative/idea generation phase of your innovation process may take longer and cost more. But it greatly increases the odds of developing successful new products. It also keeps you in touch with the problems your customers face, which can change a lot faster than you think. Your customers represent a bountiful source of new product ideas, and the process of engaging them is likely to produce other benefits like stronger working relationships and deeper loyalty as well.
Before getting customers involved, however, I strongly recommend unlearning what you think you already know about them.
Our built-in assumptions, beliefs and “thought bubbles” about the way things work are so deeply ingrained that we often don’t realize how strongly they affect our thinking and decision-making processes. This is especially true with companies that have been serving the same customer base for a long time. We think we know all about what our customers want and need, so we rarely take the time to question our attitudes and beliefs. But in rapidly changing markets, those assumptions can quickly become obsolete.
Until we identify and discard our outdated ideas, attitudes and assumptions about customer relationships, any efforts to invite them into the innovation process may cause more harm than good.
3. Manage the process.
Many people think that in order to successfully innovate, all you have to do is come up with a bunch of creative ideas.Not so.
To reap the desired rewards, innovation must be carefully managed from beginning to end. It starts with idea generation, followed closely by idea evaluation and then implementation. Creativity doesn’t become innovation until you actually bring a new product or service to market that customers are willing to pay for.
To manage the innovation process, start by identifying the innovation model that best fits your business. Develop strategic targets to guide your efforts. Understand the value of close customer relationships, but actively seek ideas from many different sources. Most of all, train your management team to recognize and skillfully handle breakthrough ideas that lead to disruptive innovations.
4. Build a culture that supports innovation.
To succeed, innovation needs to become an integral part of how you do business. It must be an ongoing process in which you never stop looking for new and better ways to add value. And that requires a culture that supports innovation for the long-term.
To establish a culture where innovation can flourish, define what successful innovation looks like for your business. Paint a picture of what your organization looks like when innovation becomes a way of life and how it will benefit all your key stakeholders.
Get in the habit of constantly challenging your assumptions about your business, your market and your industry so that you don’t get stuck in “that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.” Teach your people to think differently so they can see the world in new and different ways.
Show employees how and where they fit into the innovation process. Ask for their ideas on how to improve products, processes and workflow, and keep the lines of communication open up and down the organization.
Develop teams with diverse skills and analytical styles, and learn to get comfortable with contention, debate, and tension. Give people continuous feedback on their performance, and reward them (both publicly and privately) for their innovation efforts. Most of all, demonstrate your commitment to innovation through your actions as well as your words.
5. Look outside the box.
For most companies, innovation remains an internal process. Ideas are generated, developed, and brought to market using the talents, skills and resources that reside within the organization. In a world that doesn’t change very quickly, this approach will generally produce satisfactory results.
But the world moves a lot faster these days, and relying solely on internally generated ideas may mean that faster, more agile competitors will beat you to market with new products or services. For this reason, forward-looking companies have begun experimenting with innovation models that combine internal and external resources.
Some companies are having success with the “connect and develop” model, which consists of importing ideas from outside sources and enhancing them internally. Others are “off-shoring” their R&D centers to put them closer to sources of raw materials, labor and new ideas. Regardless of the model, the idea is that tapping into ideas and resources outside the organization will enable you to bring new products to market faster, cheaper and with a better chance of success.
The next generation of market leaders will do more than just brainstorm their way to success. They will aim high, get customers involved, establish the right culture, and look beyond their borders for new product and service ideas. Most of all, they will manage the innovation process as if their very survival depends on it. In today’s markets, that may well be true.
Rapid Prototyping
Introduction:
A prototype is a conceptual model, a preliminary depiction of the ultimate intent or idea of a design. Prototypes tend to be incomplete models. They provide the basis for working out design ideas, testing assumptions, and obtaining feedback from users.
Prototype Advantages:
- Improve communication
- Decrease development time
- Reduce project cost and minimize risk
- Minimize the number of design-process modifications
- Extend product lifetime by adding necessary features and eliminating redundant ones early in the design process
- Enable design variations
- Enable greater product complexity, if desired
- Decrease delivery time, ultimately facilitating quicker introduction to the marketplace
Methodology of Prototypes
The basic methodology for prototyping techniques is as follows:
- A CAD model is constructed, then converted to STL format. The resolution can be set high enough to minimize stair-stepping.
- The RP machine processes the .STL file by creating sliced layers of the model.
- The first layer of the physical model is created. The model’s profile is then incremented by the thickness of the next layer, and this process is repeated to completion of the model.
- The model and any supports are removed. The surface of the model is then finished and cleaned.
Glossary
RAPID PROTOTYPING
| 3D Printing | A generic term for processes that use ink-jet technology to print material in layers. |
| 3D Systems | A major player in the rapid prototyping arena. Produce SLA and SLS machines as well as some resins through newly acquired RPC. |
| Accuracy | A measurement of deviation from the CAD data. Accuracy is dependent on the process used to make the rapid prototype. |
| Add-In | A program that runs within another program enabling additional functions to be preformed without leaving the native environment. |
| Additive Manufacturing | A term used to describe rapid prototyping. Rapid prototyping differs from other manufacturing methods in that one starts with nothing and continually adds material instead of starting with a work piece and removing material to construct a part. |
| Build Envelope | Measurement of the machines part size limitations given by the X, Y and Z axes. |
| CAD | Computer Aided Design. |
| CAM | Computer Aided Manufacturing. |
| Concept Model | A rapid prototype used to evaluate designs early in the design process. |
| Facet | One triangular element used to approximate the surface of a model. A facet is defined as three nodes and an outward normal. It takes thousands of triangles to define a complex model. The facet data is kept in an STL file. |
| Form and Fit Model | Rapid prototype used to evaluate assembly and basic functional issues. |
| Free Form Fabrication | A generic term for all rapid prototyping processes. |
| Functional Model | Rapid prototype made of materials close to final spec materials that initial testing can be performed on. |
| Fused Deposition Modeling | Process using molten plastics extruded by a nozzle that traces the parts cross sectional geometry layer by layer. |
| Post Processing | Once a part is completed, each process has certain operations that need to be performed to it to make the part useable. It may include sanding to remove stair stepping, support structure removal, de-powdering, infiltration or painting. |
| Resolution | The minimum feature size that a process can be expected to reproduce. In the XY plane it can depend on pixels, laser spot size and mechanical precision. In the Z dimension it depends on the layer thickness. |
| RP | Rapid Prototyping. Rapid Prototyping is an additive process of layering plastic, wood ceramic or paper to create a 3D object. |
| Selective Laser Sintering | Process using photosensitive powders sintered by a laser that traces the parts cross sectional geometry layer by layer. |
| Slice | One layer of a prototype. Many slices are built on top of another to create a complete part. Each slice has a thickness varying from approximately .001 in to .010 in. depending on the process used. |
| Stair Stepping | Visual detractor caused because rapid prototypes are made using a layer by layer method with each layer having a finite thickness. Small steps are created on curved surfaces. Reducing the layer thickness helps minimize stair stepping. |
| Stereolithography | Process using photosensitive resins cured by a laser that traces the parts cross sectional geometry layer by layer. |
| STL | The standard file format for all rapid prototyping processes. The extension stands for STereoLithography but the format applies to all major rapid prototyping technologies. |
| Stratasys | Producer of machines used to create FDM Models. |
| Support Structure | A feature added to a part in some RP methods in order to maintain accuracy while building especially where overhangs or undercuts are seen. The supports are removed after the build is completed. |
What is Rapid Prototyping
How does Rapid Prototyping Work?
Rapid prototyping is a technology that takes a three-dimensional computer model and builds a three dimensional part by building layers upon layer of material. Its speed and low cost allow design teams to confirm their new designs early and frequently in the process.
Step 1
Start with a 3 dimension computer model. Typically created in 3D CAD products like SolidWorks, Rhino, Pro/E, Mechanical Desktop etc.
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| Step 1 |
Step 2
From 3D CAD, an STL file is exported. Typically done as a "File Save As …". Xpress3D CAD Add-ins perform this step automatically.
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| Step 2 |
Step 3
The STL file is then translated into hundreds (or even thousands) of cross sectional data.
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| Step 3 |
Step 4
Starting with the bottom slice, the prototyping machine builds each slice upon the previous, until all the slices are built and the prototype is complete.
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| Step 4 |
Step 5
Final Prototype.
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| Step 5 |
Comparision of Materials
Materials:
The chart below provides a comparison of materials offered by Xpress3D. The ratings are based on some common applications and uses.
Some materials may not be currently available based on our service bureau's offerings.The information presented are typical values intended for reference and comparison purposes only. They should not be used for design specifications or quality control purposes. End-use material performance can be impacted by, but not limited to, part design, end-use conditions, test conditions, etc. Actual values will vary with build conditions.
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2 = Good Prototyping Advantages & Disadvantages
Rapid prototype is a process wherein a working model or prototype is developed for the purpose of testing the various product features like design, ideas, features, functionality, performance and output. This process of development of working model is quite quick. The user can give an early feedback regarding the prototype. Rapid prototyping is, generally, a significant and essential part of the system designing process and it is believed to decrease the project cost and risk.
The Rapid prototype that is developed by the process of rapid prototyping is based on the performance of earlier designs. Hence, it is possible to correct the defects or problems in the design by taking corrective measures. The product can be produced if the prototype meets the requirements of all designing objectives after sufficient refinement. There are many advantages of rapid prototyping.
ADVANTAGES:
- Some people are of the opinion that rapid prototyping is not effective because, in actual, it fails in replication of the real product or system.
- It could so happen that some important developmental steps could be omitted to get a quick and cheap working model. This can be one of the greatest disadvantages of rapid prototyping.
- Another disadvantage of rapid prototyping is one in which many problems are overlooked resulting in endless rectifications and revisions.
- One more disadvantage of rapid prototyping is that it may not be suitable for large sized applications.
- The user may have very high expectations about the prototype's performance and the designer is unable to deliver these.
- The system could be left unfinished due to various reasons or the system may be implemented before it is completely ready.
- The producer may produce an inadequate system that is unable to meet the overall demands of the organization.
- Too much involvement of the user might hamper the optimization of the program.
- The producer may be too attached to the program of rapid prototyping, thus it may lead to legal involvement.
- The cost reduction benefit of rapid prototyping also seems to be debatable, as sufficient details regarding the calculation basis and assumptions are not substantial.
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