2. Chapter 2: Literature review
2.6 Creative design morphology in product design to lay the premises for adopting UCD as a
creative processes of generating ideas and concepts to meet user needs for innovation hold high potential.
subjective judgements are the only available means of making quantification and is difficult.
Therefore, it makes sense to break down the designer’s tasks into micro steps to be able to abstract out. These micro steps incorporate as innovation, embedded in the features designed. This is a familiar practice followed in most of the design morphologies. Micro task analysis is a standard practice in operations management. While sketching and visualizing may be a part of a designer’s skill of recording design thinking – the same may not be the core activity for engineers and business entrepreneurs in MSMEs. This is the gap in design morphology that this thesis aims to fill by developing an indexing tool based on micro analysis of product parts under value engineering principles. From these, templates can be developed that help establish relationships between a product’s parts and thus help separate innovation inputs that get dissolved into the product. There is no such method to convert components of innovation resulting from the cognitive thought process of creativity in terms of indexical values. Our research aims in developing such method to identify a suitable innovation index.
2.7 Literature on Design Driven Innovation
To achieve innovation in organization, design approach helps considerably, but requires instant examination of the design methods and improvising the practices of the firm. Archer and Simon studies focused on design methods back in 1960s [Verganti, 2009]. Over the decades, a number of new methods, theories and approaches have been developed in design research.
Buchanan [1998], Franz [2000] have discussed the relation between innovation and design practices. Design council United Kingdom stated, “Design can help organizations transform their performance, from business, product innovation; to the commercialization of science and delivery of public services”. Many European countries developed design innovation policies with the rise in MSME numbers. The Danish have ‘Design vision 2020’ with challenge led innovation. Good policies and vision makes design driven innovation to foster. China has 27 districts only for design, with all the modern facilities like prototyping, incubators, collaborations etc. Currently China is the manufacturing hub. A new shift in Chinese system is “Designed in China” instead of ‘Made in China’, [Lottersberger, 2012] promoting design as new strategy. Many MNCs adopted design principles into their practices and have become global leaders to name a few Apple, Dyson etc.
A study on Design driven innovation Fig. 2.12 [Verganti, 2009], describes it as: creating a new product that user never expected. It is not from market driven, data collected or any analytics, or any user needs but it is creating new markets. Current studies deal with incremental innovation and radical innovations, as many researchers and organization are involved. Design driven innovation pushes radical innovation to the new meanings. From where the meanings arise? Based on the researches, organizations should think on wider prospect to identify the new meanings, user adopts and accept that it is creating the meaning and it is made possible only by design driven innovation. Innovation in products is done by imbibing sense of things, which user never expected.
It cannot happen in incremental innovation which many firms are practicing. This thesis posits that if radical innovation is pushed into a firm as a ‘strategy’, the total effect on a firm’s profit margin increases significantly. As seen in the literature survey there are not many methodologies available to incorporate innovation as a strategy by MSMEs.
Figure 2.12: Innovation Strategies adopted and redrawn Verganti [2008]
The general innovation practices in organization is not readily visible and structured. User centered design and user needs can lead to the incremental innovation. When technology thrust meets, design driven meanings it leads to radical innovations. Thinking beyond users, socially and culturally can influence and create new meanings by the professionals called as interpreters. They can give deep understanding of products on how users give meanings. Design driven innovation in integration with design can give new meaning by producing breakthrough products. This approach and thinking is missing in Indian MSMEs. They need special training, skill sets and investment in designers etc. our research focuses on providing a method to get into design thinking and producing more value added products. Currently there are many design clinics established in India, but the lack of communication and lack of design thinking has slowed down the path for innovation. But the researchers are finding new ways to achieve innovation, especially through usability or UCD and design driven innovation as promoters of innovation.
In this thesis it is posited that UCD approach and the “user needs” themselves can lead to incorporating incremental innovation. When technology thrust meets design driven meanings, it leads to radical innovations. Thinking beyond users, socially, culturally can influence and create new utility meanings by professional designers. Design driven innovation can give new meaning and insights by producing breakthrough products resulting from reinterpreting meaning in social and lifestyle contexts. Currently in a country wide government funded experiment there are many
‘design clinics’ established in India for MSME [Design Clinic Scheme for MSMEs 2011, National Institute of Design project] to improve the comprehension and integrating design as value adding process for MSMEs. But lack of awareness and lack of design thinking as a strategy amongst MSMEs continues to prevail despite such massive efforts.
A popular Hindi language term called ‘Jugaad/Jugged’ is often found in Indian popular media. It is a Hindi language term and is not found in southern parts of India or is unknown in non-Hindi language regions of India including the southern parts. Jugaad is loosely translated as ‘contraption put together from parts at hand’. At best it is a romanticized version of the word innovation. Often products that are touted to be a result of Jugaad are raised in status as ‘wonderful examples of what
Indians can do without much resources’. Most of the products resulting from the Jugaad approach are of very low quality, unreliable and inefficient from all respects. Other countries call such innovations as frugal innovations. An example of Jugaad are given below in Fig. 2.13.
Figure 2.13: Examples of Jugaad, Coffee making with pressure cooker and pumping water by bike
At best, Jugaad approach can be a starting point for idea generation. Jugged products do have possibilities of being developed into full-fledged innovation. This would be possible, if a systematic method of adding value by measuring the incremental improvements is brought into the jugged schema. There are no models for upward movement of transforming Jugaad ideas into commercially sale-able innovative product.Attempts by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as SRISTI [Honey bee] have been encouraging grass route innovators and jugged contraptions but their total efforts seem to indicate marginal gains. Micro enterprises to whom jugged appeals do not have better models for innovation which is a gap that, this research takes into consideration.