Innovation In Australia
I had the opportunity to take part in an Innovation session run at Trajan Scientific and Medical. This covered both the Innovation philosophy they operate under and also included a site tour and explanation of the practical aspects of building highly collaborative relationships.
Disruptive trends
Autodesk presented a session on trends at work today:
- How we make things is changing
- How users buy is also changing
- Everyone has access to the power to compare products online
- Kickstarter has Democratised funding
- 3D printing allows us to make mechanical products in one hit without tooling
- You can lease a micro-factory for a day or buy a 3D printer for a fraction of the cost of 5 years ago
- Personalised products – such as taking a picture of your ear and getting a custom ear bud made at a very affordable price
- Rolls Royce now sell engines as a service
- IoT now means we can instrument everything so it allows improvements in everything. This includes productivity, service, response and learning from actual product use
So now anyone can become a product designer and manufacturer - The 4th industrial revolution is not just for large organisations but individuals can also now become niche product entrepreneurs
- It also allows re-shoring of products that went to Asia and can now come back
- Autodesk are now moving to a subscription model with cloud services so you can buy a 1 month subscription if that is all you need
- You can now make products at the point of need rather than mass produce in one spot and ship around the world
- And designers from around the world can now contribute to projects and the manufacture can now happen anywhere
Trajan
Andrew Gooley presented a session on Trajan’s approach to innovation and collaboration.
Trajan stands for science interfacing with society. They have focused on making scientific based components for products and particularly boron and silicate glass items for laboratories, patient samples and individual user’s needs. They have multiple plants around the world. It is not the product that defines them but the collaboration process. Trajan was a Roman Emperor and introduced many desirable social innovations.
Trajan now see collaboration as the core commercialisation competence they have and is the primary competitive advantage they have. An example is the way they have worked with the University of Adelaide photonics department to use their facility, run it as a commercial entity, use it for their own manufacture and also improve it using the technology they have already developed for their own manufacturing facilities around the world.
An example is collecting and analysing patient samples in the home. Then extending that to third world countries and remote communities to improve their health outcomes. Or reducing premature births by facilitating in home health monitoring to identify conditions that lead to that and providing timely dietary feedback.
Their primary collaboration relationship building technique is to fire bullets before you fire cannons. So try something small to even determine if it can work at all. Not every university or other private company are capable of collaboration.
Their other strength is the ability to run their manufacturing so that they can build to order today.
I was personally impressed during the tour and came away feeling excited about the possibilities for Australian companies to compete on a global basis if we go about it the right way.
Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development, focusing on products that are intended to be Made In Australia. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for more than 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2016 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.