Kevin J. Farrell, Principal Engineer, Computational Simulation & Validation

Innovation can be broadly defined as the process of coming up with something new or different that creates value. Historical market trends tell us that half of the Standard & Poor's 500 companies could be replaced in the next ten years, so a business must continue to innovate to survive. Creativity and invention play important roles even in novel applications of existing technologies. Regardless of its origin, innovation must create value.

Being innovative requires deliberate actions. Business strategists have defined four broad categories of innovation (incremental, sustaining, disruptive, and radical), clearly described by Anthony et al. [1]. While operating in the incremental and sustaining categories is somewhat comfortable and familiar, embracing disruptive and radical innovation requires breaking through any inertia derived from past successes. Creating a culture of being intensely curious, customer-obsessed, and adept at ambiguity takes hard work.

Reinvigorating innovation is more important than ever if humans are to find solutions to today's challenges in advanced materials, electronics, big data/artificial intelligence, the environment, and the energy-food-water-nexus. Over the past decades, HTRI pursued several initiatives in the spirit of innovation. Many of these have become valuable research tools (CFD and visualization measurements), methods (neural net analysis), new products (HTRI SmartPM), and features that our members enjoy today.

Recently, we have formalized our investment with a new innovation campaign. A number of promising ideas are already in various stages of development. Some staff pitched their ideas at a recent internal meeting. The Q&A sessions after each presentation were very active, providing valuable feedback and allowing us to plan additional development. These ideas include an HTRI QR code, optimal heat exchanger geometries using 3D printing, and a voice-activated “Ask HTRI” app.

Stay tuned for future developments!

Reference

  1. S. D. Anthony, P. Cobban, N. Painchaud, and A. Parker, Eat, sleep, innovate: How to make creativity an everyday habit inside your organization, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA (2020).