Concepts of Engineering

and Technology

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 The process of forming ideas.
 The creative process of generating,
developing, and communicating new ideas
 An idea is understood to be a basic
element of thought that can be either
visual, concrete, or abstract
 An essential part of the design process,
both in education and practice
Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.
 The exchange of ideas in order to
generate more ideas
 To get people to think about things in new ways
 It is important to be open and not rule anything
out
 No criticism or judgments allowed
 Failure is an opportunity to seek new solutions or
ask different questions

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 Improvement is incremental
 Innovation is a game changer
 Examples of improvement:
 Realplayer, Windows media player, winamp
 Examples of innovation: ITunes
 Netflix is doing to TV what ITunes did to music
 Improvement is necessary for a companies
survival, innovation can create market
dominance
Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.
 To create business value. This can be a
reduction in cost, a new product, an
improvement to an existing product, or a new
service
 To generate as many ideas as possible in as
condensed a timeframe as possible
 Companies want to believe that generating
and leveraging the ideas of their workers is
one of their core competencies and leads to a
competitive advantage
Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.
 To discover important new products or
features
 To add efficiency to a process
 To develop open communication through the
process of discussion
 To leverage the collective brainpower of the
entire organization
 People involved develop a sense of purpose and
value to the company

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

 Ideation is becoming more common in a
company’s product development process
 The old process was more linear and relied on
the capabilities of fewer individuals
 The ideation process promotes an internal
corporate culture of trust and shared
information
 Anyone can contribute to innovation

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.

 More than one person, group, or
organizational unit
 Collaboration has to be developed
 What can we do together must turn into what will
we do together.
 Relationships are often the key
 There must be some structure to the
process
 A tangible goal has to be defined
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 Look at trends
 Do an industry analysis
 Leverage customer interactions
 Voice of the Customer
 Customers can provide some insight into wants or
needs
 Particularly with early adopters
 Brainstorm possible solutions
 SWOT analysis (strength, weakness,
opportunities, threats)
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 Creativity
 Problems often have contradictory
requirements
 Keep the cost down and make it durable
 Called an inventive problem
 A problem with no known solution

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 Innovation
 A new method, idea, or device
 Development
 To process of producing a product or
result
 Actualization
 Making the product real
Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.
 Engineers generally think of themselves as
expert problem solvers
 Engineers can apply knowledge of systems,
mechanical properties, and have a tool chest of
things that have worked in other situations
 Engineers are not generally considered to be
artistic or creative
 The tools an engineer uses to solve a problem are
usually analytical or mathematical (logical)

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 Engineering is RESULT driven and the primary
goal is always the same: Find the OPTIMAL
solution to a problem
 An engineer want to look at a solution as a
series of simple pieces
 Complexity leads to the use of simplifying
assumptions
 An outside viewpoint is often needed to
bypass the restrictions that logical or
sequential thinking involves
Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.
 Ideation is a creative process, not an
analytical process
 Ideate with a geek, validate with the meek
 Diversity is important
 You need divergent thinking
 not ideas for slight variations to existing products
that do not lead to innovation
 Cross functional planning teams

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 Creative problem solving usually
requires two distinct phases: divergent
thinking (ideation) and convergent
thinking (idea analysis and evaluation)
 There has to be some method of
implementing proposed solutions
 What good are ideas if they are not put to use?

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved.