Innovation…
…is the continuous evolution of mankind
The genesis of innovation
Insights come when you master technology, but mastery needs curiosity and the willingness to learn
Ideas come when you free your creativity, while freedom is the existence of choice
Innovation is when you get your products to market and they are accepted by your customers
Incremental and disruptive innovation
As an illustration of the difference between incremental and disruptive innovation, let’s have a look to one of the most innovative projects of the last time: the hyperloop.
Even if the idea of people transportation inside a tube is old, the project has been (re-) presented by Elon Musk by publishing a paper (Hyperloop Alpha) in 2013. The general idea is to operate high speed trains in a tube with reduced air pressure and thus be able to get higher cruising speed.
Following the hype, several businesses have started to compete in this new market. Academic and non academic research teams have been created to develop the necessary technology:
To do high speed transportation, a very limiting factor is the air resistance. This has been solved by giving aerodynamic forms to the front of the vehicles as seen on high speed trains, airplanes and even coaches.
Incremental and disruptive innovation
As an illustration of the difference between incremental and disruptive innovation, let’s have a look to one of the most innovative projects of the last time: the hyperloop.
Even if the idea of people transportation inside a tube is old, the project has been (re-) presented by Elon Musk by publishing a paper (Hyperloop Alpha) in 2013. The general idea is to operate high speed trains in a tube with reduced air pressure and thus be able to get higher cruising speed.
Following the hype, several businesses have started to compete in this new market. Academic and non academic research teams have been created to develop the necessary technology:
To do high speed transportation, a very limiting factor is the air resistance. This has been solved by giving aerodynamic forms to the front of the vehicles as seen on high speed trains, airplanes and even coaches.
To understand the difference between incremental and disruptive innovation, let’s only view the design and even more the geometric form of the front side of actual pods presented by several companies operating in the hyperloop market.
Off course this is not a (technical) comparison of the different solutions: There are real existing prototypes designed for the validation of specific aspects (or parts) of the final solution, others are digital design studies to give a vision of what could be the future.
hyperloop-one presents their current prototype vehicle « XP-1 »
Another example would be the Chinese project “t-flight”
In both examples, you can easily realize the aerodynamic form as an evolution of the existing solutions to reduce the air resistance by diverting the air around the vehicle. This is incremental innovation.
On the other hand, disruptive innovation would have been done if the engineers and designers did not think about diverting the air, but to use it as input of the jet engine and thus completely changing the form of the pod:
Design study of Hyperloop transportation techologies
Design study from Camilo Sanchez
A mix of both types of innovation could be represented by the prototype vehicle WARR of the hyperloop team of the Technische Universität München:
They won the speed competition of the “Hyperloop Pod Competition”, showing that often the winning approach is not at extremities…
A mix of both types of innovation could be represented by the prototype vehicle WARR of the hyperloop team of the Technische Universität München:
They won the speed competition of the “Hyperloop Pod Competition”, showing that often the winning approach is not at extremities…