science invention22 Invention and Innovation As a Problem Solving Process

Introduction:It has been my experience as a professional inventor that every “AH-HA” moment is followed by several “Uh Oh!”, “Oh No!” and some coarser expletives. It seems that every “solution” that I have tried to implement and commercialize required the solving of, what time seemed like, an endless series of problems.What solved a problem for the end user often created another problem in the manufacturing, costs or some other area of the project. Based on my experience is that problems never completely disappear but are broken down, altered and transposed to some other area. That is, appearing to make a problem disappear just means that it has been transferred to some other area in whole or in part and appears as another single problem (of similar size) or a collection of several smaller problems.However, I have developed a process for coming up with the initial innovative idea(s) and solving the subsequent string of problems in its development.? This process is discussed below.Defining Product Features and Characteristics:The first part of this step is to identify the problem that is going to be addressed.? The next step is to examine… More >>