发表于:2007-12-07 17:12:00
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CONTROL DESIGN Innovator Awards 2006
ControlDesign.com
Keywords: Control Design, 2006 Control Design Innovator Awards, Innovator Awards, Mamacita, Sabel Engineering, Fanuc, Noel Barbulesco and Hitan Patel
The winners of our 1st Annual Innovator Awards all built machines that represent significant departures from the past, and their customers bear witness to how these innovations improve their applications.
By Jim Montague, Executive Editor
THOMAS EDISON was correct as usual when he said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. But without that 1%, you might as well be flipping burgers or X-raying bags at the airport. If it’s such a crucial catalyst, however, where does inspiration come from, and where can we get more?
Necessity is invention’s traditional mom, but fatigue is no doubt its dad. “A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve it,” states the dialogue in Plato’s Republic. After yet another long day’s labor, every wage slave eventually says “there’s got to be a better way,” though only a few actually seek it.
The fact is that good ideas can come from anywhere. In machine building and other endeavors, innovations logically grow from the experience of builders, integrators, and end users. They also come from repeatedly talking to customers, genuinely listening to what they have to say, and taking the too-rare step of acting on it.
Innovations also come from technical professionals exploring areas they don’t usually work in, such as an IT person getting onto the plant floor, or vice versa, and occasionally blurting out an idea that everyone will soon say was obvious all along.
Sometimes ideas just click in, seeming to appear from nowhere like that proverbial bolt from the blue. You might be looking at a component or device you’ve used for years, when suddenly you see something about it you hadn’t before. It’s as if a mythological muse whispers a new way to use it, or as if an occult hand points to a new solution. Other times, ideas are the culmination of a long process of preparing and waiting for technical, economic, or other conditions to allow a long-sought goal to become possible.
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