Ingenuity in the Global Market: How To ... - American Chemical Society

Chapter 15

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Ingenuity in the Global Market: How To Leverage Open Innovation To Achieve Results for Your Organization Eloise Young* Senior Program Manager, NineSigma, 23611 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 320, Cleveland, Ohio 44122, U.S.A. *E-mail: [email protected].

Thanks to the interconnectivity of modern technology, the global market is accessible in ways never previously imagined. Open Innovation is a proven method for creating fruitful partnerships that reduce time to market and uncover innovation that often lies at the intersection of two industries, or two technical disciplines. NineSigma helps organizations ‘connect with the world’ to find new solutions, knowledge or partners to accelerate the innovation cycle. In this article, Dr. Eloise Young will share examples that show how successful international connections and discoveries have been made as a result of Open Innovation. Dr. Young will also address the fundamentals of building an Open Innovation program to help create competitive advantages for your organization and drive to superior results.

Introduction In its broadest sense, open innovation is the act of going outside yourself to find the solution to a problem. Collaboration with another research lab, crowd-sourcing, and innovation contests are all examples of open innovation. The term open innovation and its use as a formal business tool are relatively new – it was promoted by Henry Chesbrough in his book (1) “Open Innovation: The new Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology” in 2005. However, the practice has been around for a long time. 300 years ago, the British government established the Longitude Prize in 1714. At that time, there was no way to accurately determine a ship’s position © 2015 American Chemical Society Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


if it was not within sight of land. This inability to reliably navigate on long ocean voyages had sometimes disastrous consequences and significant impact on the British economy. The British government offered £20,000 to anyone that could successfully determine longitude within 30 nautical miles. John Harrison won for his work on chronometers that would accurately keep time at sea. This is a terrific example of open innovation for several reasons. The contest had a clear and urgent objective, and the prize of £20,000 (which is worth more than £20 million today) was compelling. Also, this example highlights a common NineSigma theme that great solutions sometimes arise from adjacent disciplines or sectors. In fact, given all of these similarities, this example could be looked at as an early predecessor of the modern day prize-based contests within the open innovation marketplace.

NineSigma’s Spin on Open Innovation NineSigma’s spin on open innovation is that we work with major, multinational companies to help them expand their networks. To a greater or lesser extent, everyone has a network. It can start with colleagues down the hall and expand to colleagues in another business unit; it can include other universities or companies with whom you jointly collaborate. NineSigma works with companies and organizations to help them reach into geographies, industrial sectors, and research labs that are currently outside their known network (Fiure 1).

Figure 1. New solutions and ideas come from internal and external networks. (Courtesy of NineSigma.) 146 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


CCEMC Case Study One example of how NineSigma, using its unique methodology, helps its clients is the continuing work done with the CCEMC. The Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) is a non-profit, grant-awarding organization based in Alberta, Canada, whose mandate is to fund the development and deployment of technologies that will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and manage climate change. They have awarded tens of millions of dollars to research labs, start-ups, and companies to fund projects in the areas of carbon capture and storage, renewable energy, clean energy production, energy efficiency, adaptation, carbon uses, and biological initiatives. Although the CCEMC is well-known within Alberta, and to a lesser extent throughout Canada, the organization is virtually unknown outside of Canada. The CCEMC knows that there are many minds all across the globe working on different aspects of GHG emissions and climate change, but they didn’t know how to get their message out to all of those groups and individuals. Additionally, much of the work they fund results in important but incremental advances. They were interested in helping to develop truly transformative technologies that will have significant impacts on emissions and on the environment. NineSigma worked with the CCEMC to create and administer the CCEMC Grand Challenge: Innovative Carbon Uses (2). This multi-stage program spans 5 years and offers over $35 million to help develop and ultimately commercialize technologies that convert carbon emissions into valuable products. Round One of this Grand Challenge concluded in April, 2014 with the announcement of the 24 Round One winners. Each winner then received a seed grant of $500,000 to develop technologies that will annually convert at least 1 megaton of carbon emissions into valuable products. These winners were selected from 344 submissions that came from 37 countries around the world. This level of international outreach far exceeded CCEMC’s previous geographic range for grants and shows the power of open innovation in the global market. This Grand Challenge is making significant strides towards CCEMC’s goals for this project and showcases how open innovation can be an effective tool to help an organization to make the impact they want within the global marketplace.

Three Keys to a Successful Open Innovation Program If this example is intriguing, and open innovation might be a tool worth considering, what are some things to keep in mind? There are three keys to a successful open innovation program (Figures 2-4). First, make your needs known. This seems self-evident, but there are several levels from which to consider this statement. If you do not tell the world you have a problem, no one will think about possible solutions. When NineSigma successfully pairs a solution provider with a client, it is not uncommon to hear something along the lines of “I had no idea that this was an issue, or that my technology could be used as part of the solution.” Without the Longitude Prize, who knows whether or not John Harrison would have made the connection between accurate time-keeping and navigation? 147 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


Figure 2. Key #1 to a successful Open Innovation program. (Courtesy of NineSigma.)

Related to the statement “make your needs known,” is the need to present the problem to the right audience, using language that is clearly understood. Asking a taxi driver in Shanghai for directions to the subway in English is unlikely to result in a successful outcome. Similarly, describing a problem using terms that are specific to a certain field or industry can deter someone from outside that specialty from seeing how his or her technology could be a solution.

Figure 3. Key #2 to a successful Open Innovation program. (Courtesy of NineSigma.) 148 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


This leads into the second key for a successful open innovation program: frame problems differently. Sometimes a particularly intransigent problem can become so weighed down with constraints, conditions, and other boundaries that it appears impossible to describe clearly – let alone solve. Looking at things from a different angle can provide perspective and allow one to see to the heart of problem. A great example of this is a project that NineSigma ran for Eastman Chemicals. Distillation at an industrial manufacturing scale is an extremely expensive separation technique; the associated energy costs are significant. Eastman wanted to identify a way to lower the cost of distilling water away from organic reaction mixtures. The heart of the problem is finding a low cost way to separate water from other organic components that can work at industrial scales. Whether this separation occurs by distillation or some other method is less important than its cost and scalability. We worked with Eastman to frame this issue succinctly in the following manner: separation of water from a mixture, without using the word distillation. As a result of this framing, Eastman received 20 proposals from 7 different countries. One of the most intriguing proposals was a separation technique developed by a Dutch company for refinement of mined natural gas. Freshly produced natural gas is contaminated with water vapor and other gases. The Dutch technology forces this feedstock through a narrow orifice at high pressure, then adiabatic expansion and cooling causes the water vapor to condense and separate from the natural gas stream. Eastman entered into discussions with this company and several other responding companies as a result of the project. By focusing on separation, rather than distillation, Eastman received a much wider range of proposals and possible solutions than they would otherwise have.

Figure 4. Key #3 to a successful Open Innovation program. (Courtesy of NineSigma.) 149 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

The third key to successful open innovation is to be open to solutions that were not invented here. The world is a big place, and there are smart, talented, and creative people all over. Since this symposium is about “Innovations from International Collaborations”, this audience embraces, or at least is interested in, working with groups outside your local geography. But how do you go about finding those potential partners and their technologies?


Innovation Contests and the GE 3D Printing Production Quest One way is through an Innovation Contest (3). The case study provided here has a strong international component. GE is interested in the possibilities of using 3D printing to manufacture high performance, high precisions parts that might be used in a variety of end applications, including jet engines and/or medical imaging equipment. NineSigma worked with GE to develop and manage the GE 3D Printing Production Quest to understand the possible opportunities. This innovation contest was focused on 3D printing test coupons with high precision, using tungsten (Figures 5-6). The goal was to identify potential suppliers and development partners with cutting edge technologies and capabilities. Initial respondents were asked to submit a capabilities statement.

Figure 5. Information on GE 3D printing production quest. (Courtesy of NineSigma.) 150 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.


Figure 6. Results of the GE 3D printing production quest. (Courtesy of NineSigma.)

GE awarded the 10 most promising groups a token cash prize and invited them to demonstrate their technology using a GE-supplied test coupon development package. Three of the 10 groups were selected as contest winners, based on the quality of their submitted test coupons. One of the most interesting aspects of this innovation contest was the number of responses which came from outside of the United States. Only one of the 10 finalists was from North America; the other 9 groups were from Europe and Asia. The three winning groups were: EOS (Finland), Plansee (Austria), and Layerwise (Belgium). Each winning group received a $50,000 prize, but all finalists benefitted from the opportunity to interact directly with the GE technical team.

Conclusion Open innovation is not about finding the perfect, drop-in solution. It’s about finding new ways of defining a problem, assembling a solution from several component technologies, being open to new approaches, and/or identifying new potential collaborators. These new opportunities might be around the corner, or around the world. Using open innovation, solutions can be closer than imagined. 151 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

References 1. 2.


3.

Chesbrough, H. W. Open Innovation: The new Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology; Harvard Business Press: Boston, MA, 2005. CCEMC Grand Challenge Website on NineSights. NineSigma.com; https:// ninesights.ninesigma.com/web/ccemc-gc/ [accessed November 2014]. NineSigma’s definition of Innovation Contest; http://www.ninesigma.com/ open-innovation-services/innovation-contest [accessed November 2014].

152 Cheng et al.; Jobs, Collaborations, and Women Leaders in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015.

Ingenuity in the Global Market: How To ... - American Chemical Society

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