Scalable Innovation: A Guide for Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and IP Professionals by Eugene Shteyn

Author:Eugene Shteyn [Shteyn, Eugene]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2013-06-12T14:00:00+00:00

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Scalable Innovation

Brainstorm the Problem

Start with blank sheet (white board)

What is the problem we’re trying to solve?

What are we trying to do?

Try ideas at the limits

Zero (0) and infinity (∞)

What if we had to build a DC in China?

Pallets

Retail

Distribution

Office

Orders

Center

Home

FIGURE 10.1 From zero to infinity. Mick Mountz’s TED talk screen shot. (From Mick Mountz: Let the inventory walk and talk, Ted Talk, 2011, http://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=szU2-1infqc)

with an infinite number of workers and zero dollars per hour in direct labor costs. In the old system, to fulfill an order the worker would run to a shelf, find the right product, and bring it to the packing station. One such worker described himself as a “warehouse slave,” struggling to keep up with the

goals given to him by the supervisor [27].

But in Mick’s infinite warehouse, it would take forever to find the right

product. To solve the problem, he imagined two separate types of workers:

runners and packers. Each runner would hold his product and, upon request, would bring the desired product to the packer. As a result, the search operation would be eliminated completely. At zero dollars per hour, it would cost nothing to employ an infinite number of runners holding and delivering an

infinite number of items. Essentially, the products would walk and deliver

themselves to the packers.

To implement the idea, Mick and his colleagues developed a robotic

warehouse distribution system, in which robots played the role of runners,

delivering goods to packing stations (Figure 10.2). Guided by computers and

communicating with each other via a wireless network, the robots would

bring the right products to the right packer at the right time. In addition to eliminating search errors and in contrast with the traditional assembly lines, the new packing system allowed for complete independence between packers.

Therefore, the number, location, and specialization of packing stations could be scaled up and down depending on the number of orders—a valuable feature for online shopping, where demand varies widely from season to season.

A what–if, reality-stretching thought experiment led to an innovation that

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