Use ELIMINATION as an innovation technique

Elimination as an innovation tool is mostly used to control production or operational costs. Without affecting the quality of output, redundant functions and processes are reviewed and eliminated. Innovation comes into play to keep the quality of output in control.

Waste elimination is an important activity for every organisation. Controlling the wastage of small things like paper, electricity and other resources saves costs and adds to the profitability of the organisation. A Japanese company, Sanwa Newtec’s innovative printer use neither ink nor paper, it uses special thermal head and plastic sheets to print and erase document. You don’t have to discard the entire sheet for a small mistake, just put it back in the printer and it erases the ink and the sheet can be reused for printing. The need to eliminate paper and ink would have triggered the thought of such innovation.

Wireless devices has eliminated the use of wire, automation eliminates the use of human labour. The need to eliminate a tedious process or practice has lead to several innovations. Ball point pens eliminated the process of filling up ink from bottle. Some two wheelers start only with a self starter, the process of kicking and starting the vehicle has been totally eliminated. Such innovations open up new markets, like a self starter made it convenient for ladies to use two wheelers. Standing behind fifty people to get your railway reservation could be avoided by using the online reservation system. In mechanical clocks and watches there was a need of winding up the spring at least once in a day to store up potential energy. With the introduction of quartz technology powered by small batteries, the process got automated. Video conferencing eliminates the process of travelling and we don’t need television antennas anymore.

Elimination could be used as a tool to design low cost variants of products and services. All products and services could be purchased at different price levels. The variants with a low price tag would carry less features and benefits. Innovative minds manage to keep the “value for money” perception of the product even at lower price.

“No-frills” in this context means elimination of non-essential items to keep the price low. No-frills airlines might eliminate complementary drinks, snacks, in-flight entertainment system and compensate it with high quality customer service. No- frills supermarkets, found in many countries, do not decorate aisles and shelves, instead they would place pallets of the products along side the aisles. Such markets would think of innovative procurement policies to give high quality product at the lowest rate. Similarly, no-frills automobiles try to cater to the mass by offering especially designed cars.