FROM DILIP MUKERJEA

"Genius is in-born, may it never be still-born."

"Oysters, irritated by grains of sand, give birth to pearls. Brains, irritated by curiosity, give birth to ideas."

"Brainpower is the bridge to the future; it is what transports you from wishful thinking to willful doing."

"Unless you keep learning & growing, the status quo has no status."

Friday, October 31, 2014

A GREAT WAY TO INNOVATE

"A great way to innovate is to take an idea from another place and be the first to apply it in your field.

Take as an example the assembly line. 

Henry Ford (1863 – 1947) is often credited with the innovation of the assembly line in mass manufacturing and he was the first to use it in automobile manufacture.

Ford got the idea from an abattoir. He was impressed with the efficiency of the Swift slaughterhouse in Chicago where carcasses were butchered as they moved along a conveyor.

Ray Kroc (1902 – 1984) adopted the idea and applied it to the restaurant business when he ran the McDonald’s chain. 

He applied the assembly line principle to hamburger preparation and transformed productivity and speed of service in restaurants.

An Indian ophthalmologist, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (1918 – 2006), admired the McDonald’s approach and decided to try a similar method for the low-cost treatment of cataracts in India.

He trained paramedics to do 70% of the work required in each surgery freeing up doctors to perform the more demanding tasks. He brought assembly line thinking to the process and reduced the cost of each cataract operation to around $10 (compared to say $1700 in the USA).

In a nut shell, an idea from a slaughterhouse transformed car assembly, fast food restaurants and eye surgery."

[Thanks to innovation strategist Paul Sloane, writing in www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/]




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