JULY 2016
ISSUE 19

CREATING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES FOR NYS MANUFACTURERS 
THROUGH INNOVATION & SUSTAINABILITY
 
firstlinkParticipation Call for New NNMI Focused on Reducing Material Consumption

The Golisano Institute for Sustainability at RIT is currently leading development of a proposal for a new Department of Energy funded NNMI Institute focused on reducing material consumption through manufacturing process efficiency, remanufacturing, and recycling.  The Institute will focus on developing more cost effective recovered materials and overcoming design and other technology barriers to material reuse.   Contact COE-ASM  if you are interested in learning more about how you can participate.
 
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Atlantic Design and Manufacturing Expo: Event Highlights 

A team from the COE-ASM led by Director Mike Thurston, PhD, recently traveled to New York City for the Atlantic Design and Manufacturing Expo where vendors, manufacturers, and design firms from around the northeast came to meet and share the latest in materials, process technology, and industrial innovation. From medical device technology to packaging solutions, challenges in product and process design and execution highlighted the emerging opportunities for advanced manufacturing. Keynote speaker Martin McCourt shared thoughts on the next chapter of industrial technology integration, and underscored the untapped value of these opportunities by emphasizing the need for a collaborative, unconventional approach to problem solving. Former NASA astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao also spoke at the event, sharing interesting visions of the future of manufacturing, and, importantly, how to prepare for it. Together with new connections to New York State manufacturers, university research teams, and entrepreneurs, the COE team brought back several new perspectives on how to leverage unique philosophies and advanced technologies to solve emerging manufacturing challenges.

Martin McCourt is a former CEO of Dyson Ltd., a company with no shortage of successful disruptive designs. Dyson is responsible for the ball-based vacuum, the bladeless fan, and the energy-efficient non-thermal hand dryer; all of which, McCourt reminds us, were at one time drawing board ideas that looked nothing like the conventional market products. How, then, did they become the instantly recognizable products of today? McCourt suggests that effective product innovation in any industry requires support for iterative development.

"Iterative development" may seem a redundant term (of course, all product development goes through iterations), but McCourt emphasizes that creativity is limited when the creators are bound by conventional notions of production technology and market preferences. McCourt suggests that in today's technological environment, the capacity to generate ideas, even wild ones, is more important than the raw ability to innovate. Starting at the disruptive end of the design spectrum allows companies to think beyond traditional boundaries and work iteratively back towards what is possible, maximizing the potential for a product or process to exceed market expectations. It is these types of iterations, from basic idea to refined design, that enable innovations that stand apart from competition in their success.

To achieve this, McCourt advises that companies must develop and adopt business models that treat ideas as a fundamental good. In this pursuit, companies should seek out talent and provide employees training on simple means by which to communicate initial ideas. From simple drawing techniques and cardboard models to basic CAD drafting skills, a shared ability to depict and communicate ideas in a practical and interactive fashion provides the strongest toolkit for meaningful innovation. "There is no such thing as a bad idea," he suggests, recognizing that no one ever thought a company could (or should) manufacture a fan with no blades until someone proposed what was once a wild idea.

Dr. Leory Chiao is an American astronaut who has flown on the Space Shuttles Columbia, Discovery, and Endeavour, as well as the International Space Station. His experience at the leading edge of advanced technology allows him to share interesting visions of the future of manufacturing, and, importantly, how to prepare for it. The future, he suggests, will undoubtedly be connected. Customer orders will be placed automatically, sent to production equipment that will inform material selection and supply, and products will be tracked through to the end customer.

All of this, Dr. Chiao suggests, offers vast opportunity for technologies that enable an increasingly personalized industrial world. Dr. Chiao envisions sensors that identify individuals and respond accordingly; perhaps adjusting equipment parameters based on an individual project type, or allowing a manufacturing operator to pick up exactly where they left off the day before.

This future offers two beneficial options to innovative manufacturers: either prepare to participate in it, or prepare to enable it. By adopting smart manufacturing technologies, reinforcing operations with Big Data, and allocating resources to metrology and analytics, manufacturers can reduce operating costs and material losses while setting their ability to serve customers ahead of the competition. On the other hand, the increasing demand for connected and personalized technologies creates immense market opportunity for companies to develop and integrate such systems into existing industrial environments.

In either case, technological systems of the future will require the type of iterative development McCourt advocates. In other words, to reach the full potential of a technologically-enabled industry, innovators must shift their focus away from simply improving what already exists and toward developing wild ideas into sound, actionable designs.

Together, the ideas of Mr. McCourt and Dr. Chiao inform a valuable perspective that companies can add to their repertoire. Innovation in the future can no longer rely on marginal improvements or familiar technologies. Rather, manufacturers must work collaboratively, leveraging unique resources like the COE-ASM to approach increasingly complex challenges. Solutions may emerge from ideas that at first seem radical, but it is in these ideas that the greatest potential for innovation success is held.

GolisanoritGolisano Institute for Sustainability Named Academic Partner for New Federal Manufacturing Innovation Institute

Golisano Institute for Sustainability (GIS) is part of a winning coalition named by President Obama to head up a new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute initiative designed to bolster advanced manufacturing across the United States. The new institute will include the development of smart sensors for use in advanced manufacturing. These sensors will help manufacturers better design, measure, predict and control all aspects of the manufacturing process. As a result, traditional manufacturing processes will become more productive and efficient.
 
Thermal processing for food, for example, is typically energy intensive, using massive amounts of energy and water to give products a longer shelf life. But through the work of the smart manufacturing institute, companies can integrate small controls on the thermal processing line to monitor, adjust and improve technology to regulate and reduce energy and water consumption.  And once food is produced, smart technologies can also be used to make the packaging and shipping processes more efficient by allowing manufacturers to see data from their manufacturing line in real-time. This helps manufacturers manage products through their distribution centers and gives them more information about when products are ready to ship.
 
By modernizing the energy and water intensive manufacturing techniques that have been in place for decades and increasing energy efficiency, the United States can lower the cost of processing food, dramatically shrink the footprint of equipment need on a crowded factory floor and increase the efficiency of products that range from industrial motors to household appliances.
The institute also will launch five regional manufacturing centers-based in California, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington-that will be focused on local technology transfer and workforce development. These regional centers will be home to technology test beds aimed at helping new smart manufacturing technologies reach the marketplace faster.
 
To ensure that all American businesses, regardless of their size or potential resource limitations, have the opportunity to benefit from the institute's progress, the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute will employ an open-source digital platform and technology marketplace to integrate advanced sensors, controls, platforms and modeling technologies into commercial smart manufacturing systems. The institute will also provide the manufacturing communities with easy and affordable access to real-time analytic tools, infrastructure and industrial applications.
 
The new institute is one of three Energy Department-led institutes in the broader National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI), a network of manufacturing hubs launched by Obama in 2012. Through the NNMI, the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute also will partner with existing manufacturing innovation institutes to pioneer technologies at the intersection of their unique capabilities. This marks the fifth NNMI in which RIT has been named a significant partner.
 
The institute, which will be headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., brings more than $140 million in public-private investment from leading universities and manufacturers to develop smart sensors for use in advanced manufacturing. RIT will commit $50,000 as a consortium member over the next five years.
RIT is one of only three universities in New York state that will be part of the consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia, industry and nonprofits hailing from more than 30 states. Through the institute, information technology leaders will work with manufacturers in energy-intensive industries to manufacture more, while spending less and using less energy.
 
"RIT has a long heritage of helping U.S. manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace," said Nabil Nasr, associate provost and director of GIS. "As a proud academic partner of the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition, we will enable transformational improvements in energy efficiency and U.S. manufacturing productivity, while also creating highly skilled jobs, supporting the current and future workforce, and increasing the quality of life. We look forward to making a critical impact on U.S. manufacturing."
 
If you are interested in applying smart technologies to improve the efficiency of your manufacturing operations, contact COE-ASM and we can connect you to the SMART manufacturing team.

whysustainableWhy Sustainability Should be a Business Model Building Block 
In light of growing consumer demands, expanding regulations, and emerging resource constraints, the organizational sustainability profile is becoming an increasingly critical aspect of business asset management. Many companies are beginning to more closely examine their products, supply chains, processes, and even their facilities for areas in which energy savings, waste reductions, and closed-loop strategies might lower the operating costs and environmental impacts of doing business. However, determining sustainability priorities amongst this wide range of business aspects, and therefrom developing targeted solutions, remains an inexact science. A recent seminar sponsored by the Golisano Institute for Sustainability introduced Marc Priddy, a business design strategist for an American branch of Swiss food giant Nestlé, who argues that sustainability innovations are much simpler, much less costly, and much more effective when addressed at a fundamental level: the business model.

Priddy suggests that all businesses rely on three universal constituent elements: perspective, actions, and resources. Perspective is a reflection of the viewpoint from which corporate leadership defines the purpose of business, and thus directs the business model. Actions are just that: the activities in which a company engages in order to execute the objective of its business model. Resources, then, are the things necessary to complete those actions. These elements, as Priddy contends, are invariably related; the business perspective dictates the actions taken to meet its goals, and actions subsequently inform the resources acquired.

Herein lies the problem. The majority of manufacturing companies operate a single common business model: generate profit by selling product. As a result, when companies try to innovate at the product development (resources) level to achieve sustainability, their aims become removed from the underlying principles that define that business. Targeting individual features of individual products requires innovators to cover a lot of ground, which drives up costs and thus introduces economic roadblocks that impede innovation and dilute its effects. Priddy, for example, once worked for months in previous employment with Reebok to develop a footwear design that reduced waste and volatile organic compound (VOC) use. The result was an apparent success: the development team produced a design that reduced material and adhesive use by 12% and 8%, respectively. But the design was only one of several models in the Reebok product line (only 250,000 of several million shoes sold) and ultimately reduced overall company impact by only several millionths of one percent. After months of work by an entire design team, the final result was, objectively, neither time nor cost-effective.

Innovation focused on manufacturing processes (actions-level) is similarly limited. When the business model is only to "generate profit by selling product," the preferred actions are to keep machines running, keep the lights on, and keep air conditioning blowing to facilitate production. Developments in energy use patterns, process efficiency, and energy sources thus appear counterproductive to underlying company objectives, and are, as a result, sometimes met with resistance and cost-focused concerns.

The solution, according to Priddy, is to address and manage the corporate cultural perspective. By confronting and developing the organizational stance on sustainability challenges and their relation to business at the fundamental corporate level, companies can create an environment much more conducive to innovation, and consequently increase the overall success and growth of their business. In many cases, this adjustment can be simple: transition from "generate profit by selling product" to "generate profit by providing solutions to customer needs." This simple refocusing creates a culture supportive of identifying what those needs are, and thus facilitates innovations to meet them. Validation of investment in R&D efforts and sustainability developments is much more easily achieved when the goal of such endeavors, identifying and developing solutions to unmet customer needs, aligns with the objective of the company as a whole. Ultimately, it is this kind of development that leads to long term sustainability, in both environmental and economic respects.

Though a relatively simple and fundamental change, the effects can be profound. Nestlé, who owns Priddy's company, has a somewhat questionable track record in its sustainability performance history that, as consumer awareness evolved over time, led to considerable public fallout. Surface efforts to address product-level challenges achieved little progress, despite coming at considerable cost. Eventually, Nestlé recognized the consumer need for environmental consciousness, and started to redefine its business models to the core, focusing heavily on sustainability as a fundamental characteristic of its products and processes. As a result, Nestlé made $94 billion in 2014, and have a business model that is powerfully equipped to embrace the challenges and changing perceptions that accompany the effects of climate change. Priddy's current job is to develop and test new, sustainable business models for brands and products. One project leverages existing bottled-water delivery networks to create direct-to-consumer markets for pet food, saving the consumer a trip to the store, saving the company money in transportation and shelving fees, and reducing carbon emissions, all while capitalizing on a previously unrealized revenue stream.

Unilever, once connected to mercury dumping in an Indian subsidiary, also recently changed its fundamental business model from one focused on selling product to one that recognizes and addresses the need for environmental stewardship. The company has since reduced supply-chain pollution, nearly eliminated internal paper use, and created new products aimed at helping people improving their lives. These initiatives undoubtedly required upfront investments, but the return, enabled by a well-managed corporate cultural perspective, speaks for itself; the company now makes the list of Green Giants who earn $1 billion in profit from green products alone.

Innovation and savings can occur at any independent level of business, and are proven to have noticeable environmental and economic benefits when they are achieved. The magnitude of impact, however, is limited by the extent to which such initiatives can be developed within a given budget for time and funding. In traditional business models, that budget often restricts the ability of innovative sustainability concepts to engender meaningful impacts on a company-wide scale. In addition to fostering a maintained level of environmental degradation, such restrictions also implicitly limit the potential for growth in an increasingly demanding economy. Achieving a sustainable business, in both economic and environmental terms, thus requires that companies manage their corporate cultural perspective in a manner more conscientious of true consumer needs.

savethedateSave the Date: Made In New York Expo 
 

Made In New York Expo

Love New York, Make New York, Buy New York. This expo connects members who make products in New York and provides an opportunity for networking and exploring marketing opportunities. Information sessions and panel discussions are included. Vendors, exhibitors and sponsors are all welcome.

When:
October 19, 2016
8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p .m.
Where:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Louise Slaughter Hall, Building 78

For more information, visit the Business Council of New York.
Our mission is to increase the competitiveness of New York State manufacturers through the development and deployment of innovative technologies for more efficient and sustainable products and manufacturing processes.  If you are interested in learning more about any of the topics presented in this newsletter, please  contact us .
Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NYS Department of Economic Development (DED), unless otherwise directed by the DED.