Innovation and design are not just for engineering products as when it comes to it's later counterpart in the process of breakthroughs, engineering, firms don't need to be R&D labs to create unique solutions. From lateral thinking to divergent thinking, tool cards and design drivers are mechanisms that can directly effect the creation of new breakthroughs and revenue streams in non regulated ( non pharmaceutical and non financial markets ) or areas where government intervention and state and local rules do not directly effect the outcome of getting "new" into the hands of those who are looking to make breakthroughs.
In "Engineering meets creativity: a study on a creative tool to design new connections" we see the capability of a system of simple creativity and problem solving that can radically alter the way innovation is executed inside small to medium sized firms as well as corporations. By utilizing Design to Connect tool cards and Design Drivers modules the raw capability to statistically have higher number of generated ideas (fluency) possibilities for innovations and a larger space of idea categories to be put into the hands of those needing to disrupt existing markets we see how multiple paths to new ROI streams for newly launched efforts can happen. Playing cards, does, in fact create value and not just at the blackjack table.
When designers and firms integrate the capabilities of a repository of innovative products and a functional design repository incredible aspects of new functionality and artistic capability can arise. Tools utilizing interactive morphological matries, today called a morphological evaluation machine and interactive conceptualizer, a "MEMIC" have the ability to to output random components for every function instead of selecting a component by hand thus "creating" components for each function based on the frequency of the components solving the function in question.
For those familiar with generative design and AI systems for product design this exactly capability can also be utilised with non AI and heavy computational systems and something as simple as pen and paper. In "The development of a repository of innovative products for inspiration in engineering design" we see the model and functions necessary to make such simple pen and paper based systems work and therefore increasing the capability of product innovation without high levels of investment in such systems. Creativity and innovation capabilities are not just something for science fiction
