Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 2

However, although prototyping, because of its iterative nature, is a very interesting way to improve the acceptability of the concept in the upstream phase, it also generates a lot of waste. Indeed, prototyping has been greatly facilitated by the development of low-cost simulation techniques and tools such as 3D scanners and printers. The multiplication of trial-and-error attempts has resulted in a lot of waste from this creative part of the innovation process. We then saw the parallel development of numerous research efforts in order to recycle the materials used during the materialization process for validation by the users of the concepts. This, by integrating the concept of a short circuit (closed loop) in order to consider the entire lifecycle of the product for an innovative and responsible design.

Integrating users upstream of the innovation process is not an easy thing either. We have seen the development of a whole research activity, supported by information and digital technologies around the notion of a living lab or laboratory of uses. These are defined by the European Network of Living Labs, ENOLL, as user-led open innovation ecosystems that engage all stakeholders in the form of a public–private–people partnership (PPPP) to co-create products, services, social innovations and more in a real context, whether physically or virtually. In fact, living labs are part of open-innovation and usage-based innovation research trends, and help to explain the explosion of work on these themes in engineering since the mid-2000s.

We have shown in this contribution that, while innovation has long been of interest to the engineering sciences, we note that there was a turning point in the 2000s in terms of production and reflections on the use of engineering in the service of innovation.

In an increasingly connected world, where the globalization, acceleration and democratization of technologies are combined, new methods and processes of innovation are needed. The aim is to innovate faster, and to decompartmentalize organizations in order to create more value and reach new markets.

Through the design and development of tools (physical and digital platforms, software, etc.), methods (taking user requirements into account when assessing the need for novelty, prospective and dynamic simulation methods for analyzing the impact of an innovation on its environments, diagnosis of the capacity to innovate, collaborative engineering, decision support, etc.) and partnership modes (open innovation approach, etc.), engineering research has shed significant light on the upstream phase of innovation.

We have thus moved from a strategy of designing products/processes/services “for” to a strategy of designing “for, with and by” users, thereby restoring the credibility of a previously forgotten approach, design thinking. Taking into account the user experience through actual practices of product use, and assessing their needs and desires become the central concepts of current investigations.

Indeed, new methodologies, metrics and tools to assess the sustainable value of solutions by jointly evaluating their social, environmental and economic impacts need to be considered. The same is true for new demonstrators and experimental protocols enabling research to be conducted in living lab mode (i.e. involving public–private–people partnerships).

Innovation management must adapt: project management methods and tools are becoming “lean” and flexible, and are adopting evaluation techniques that integrate an increased variety and variability of data in the development of prospective scenarios for an innovation.

As you will have understood, innovation as seen through engineering sciences still has many fields to investigate in order to provide our industries and communities with methods and tools for sustainable innovation, i.e. to create value for the benefit of all stakeholders. This is where innovation engineering and innovation management stand out:

1 1) “Innovation management is the implementation of management techniques and systems designed to create the most favorable conditions for the development of concrete innovations” 6. It is a managerial process.

2 2) Innovation engineering enables the design and implementation of tools orchestrated by an ecosystem-based architecture for understanding and operationalizing the innovation process.

The authors would particularly like to thank Professor Claudine Guidat for her clarifications and her testimony on the beginnings of industrial engineering and industrial systems engineering in France, disciplines at the origin of work on innovation and its engineering.

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