Strong Packaging Innovation Push_Starpack Industry Awards 2011_Innovation from the Packaging Division of IOM3

The Starpack Awards 2011 were presented at the London and South East Packaging Dinner at the Landmark Hotel in London on 22 September.

The event, hosted by Alan Dedicoat, took place in aid of CLIC Sargent, the children and young person’s cancer charity.

There were nine Gold, 12 Silver and 18 Bronze award winners, along with a Special Award for sustainability and one for this year’s Starpack Champion.

The Packaging Professional - IOM3 LINK

The site gives a clear summary with photos of the winning packaging products and their innovators-companies .

Well worth a visit for budding Innovators and Innocentive addicts

Top Invention and Innovators Class, FREE too, online WW and at the Exhibition at The British Library, London, UK

A MUST for Scientists and Engineers of all walks.

TAKE HEED; Managers of the Big corporations and the Small business a like take heed, especially relevant in our current troubled employment and economical circumstances.

STIMULATING EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE: for young and old, not to be missed.
"Inventing the 21st Century" is open daily from 6 September to 28 November 2010 at the British Library, London. Admission free.

INTRODUCTION:
Every year the UK generates over 25,000 patents, trademarks, and design rights for new products and services - with the British Library helping inventors protect their ideas and explore the business potential.

To celebrate innovation - and hopefully inspire budding entrepreneurs - the Library is hosting a new exhibition exploring the journey behind 15 of the most ingenious inventions to come out of Britain in the past ten years. Take a look at some of the patented products - and get some advice from their creators.

REFERENCES: (en référence à) :

1. ""Inventing the 21st Century" is open daily from 6 September to 28 November 2010 at the British Library, London. Admission free."
- BBC News - Audio slideshow: 21st Century inventors (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

        2. Well ranked on new twitter app Tweetmeme

Re-inventing the wheel? Inconsistent results? Failure to push all the way through and LEGISLATE?

Original title and full article , 3rd June,COLOGNE from The Economist print edition with pertinent comments, all online in the Science &Technology pages, cf ref. 1 below.

"Cleaner diesel engines
Pouring water on troubled oils To make engines cleaner, add H2O," (an old idea)



Motivation for action

"Research by James Corbett of the University of Delaware estimates that soot from ships’ diesels contributes to 60,000 deaths from heart and lung disease every year."

The problem
Water & Oil do not mix naturally.

Solution

The current innovative solution reported in The Economist is due to Reinhard Strey of the University of Cologne. He uses surfactants- to a class of chemical substances which, usually in small quantities, modify the interfacial tension existing between different substances, here, H20 and Oil. Dish washing liquids are the best known household surfactants which work in this principle. removing oil and grease from our dinner plate.

Apparently many attempts to improve combustion using water and surfactants failed.
Now, Dr Strey after extensive research eventually lighted on a mixture of oleic acid (a fatty acid found in various vegetable oils) and nitrogen-containing compounds called amines. This mixture dissolves readily in diesel fuel and binds water to it without any need for stirring. The water droplets themselves can be as small as a nanometre (a billionth of a metre) across. That they are so small helps stabilise the emulsion.
A very important feature of this invention, worth repeating, is that the emulsion created is stable. The result it is claimed is, in effect, a liquid sponge, and means the mixture can be stored indefinitely, like ordinary diesel, without risk of separation.
When the Oil-Surfactant-H2O emulsion is burned, is the near-complete abolition of soot, and a reduction of up to 80% in nitrogen-oxide emissions. The surfactant itself also burns without creating emissions beyond water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
The next stage is to test the mixture in the real world. MTU, a German engine-builder, (Germany's Rolls-Royce) is now looking into the matter.

Will this innovation be adopted and made law on The Seas or is this just more Eau de Cologne to mask the stink?

REFERENCE:

The Economist,  3rd of June 2010 Science & Technology

On track to reduce vehicule emissions - Electric Motorcycle-Bike Racing, Leads - Magny-Cours,Nevers(58) FR in the race Sept 2010. Electric Car GP-F1? -The Economist.

Original Title: TTXGP: Electric Motorcycles Race Isle of Man 2009

I am no motor bike fan, too dangerous for me, but this deserves more than a mention.

2010 FIM e-Power Schedule
April 18 Le Mans (Opening race of the Le Mans 24hours)
TBD Albacete (Opening race of the Albacete 8hours)
September 12 Nevers-Magny Cours (Opening race of the Bol d'Or)
November* 14 Doha (Opening race of the Doha 8 hours)
*To be confirmed

2010 FIM e-Power Schedule.
INNOVATION claim.
"Racing development spurs production innovation. This is an accepted fact, particularly true in motorcycles. So why should electric motorcycles be any different? On June 12th, 2009, emerging electric motorcycles will be put to the racing test when the carbon-free 2009 TTXGP runs on the Isle of Man"
AIM
"The stated purpose of the (TTXGP) is “to bring clean emission transport technologies into the mainstream by demonstrating they can provide exciting, high-speed, high-performance fun.” What better place to put on a high-speed exhibition than on the famed Isle of Man road course?"
OBJECTIVITY - Save the Bike stop the Hype.
Testing the racing application of electric motorcycles in the hallowed TT crucible is perfect. There will be no hiding behind optimistic spec sheet claims, or promised improvements on future production runs (always, it seems, with a nebulous “about two years away” date affixed). Racing is a zero/sum game, there is a winner and there are losers – a clear hierarchical list of them. And come June 12th we will see who stacks up where in the emerging electric motorcycle market."

THE TTXGP RULES are simple:
1. No carbon-based fuels, no toxic emissions.

2. One lap of the 37.75 Isle of Man mountain course with no pit stops or refueling, with any bike incapable of lapping within 50minutes disqualified.

More...
Electric Bike F1-Grand Prix-TTXGP-site.

Sources and Motivation to post: Comments in the Economist following the story 'Devolving Volvo'.

NB. China '2m vehicles by 2015'?

Electric supercars-Highly charged motoring. Fast cars will go even faster with electric power
Mar 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
Quote:
"The secret (whisper it, lest puritanical greens find out) is that electric motors are better than combustion engines. They have more oomph, and no need of a gearbox to deliver it. No self-respecting supercar should be without them. And, at this month’s Geneva motor show, at least three supercar-makers showed that they had got the message. Lotus, Porsche and Ferrari each unveiled vehicles driven partly by electric motors."

"These cars have petrol engines, too, to back the electric ones up; technically, therefore, they are hybrids. But that should change in the future as batteries’ storage capacity goes up, and charging time comes down. Most importantly they show that, sometimes, doing the right thing can be fun."
TESLA PERFORMANCE SPEC.
"The launch of the Tesla roadster two years ago demonstrated that electric cars do not have to be slouches. The Californian company’s small plug-in sports car can accelerate from zero to 96kph in 3.7 seconds. It has a range of 393km (244 miles) once its lithium-ion battery pack is fully charged (which, admittedly, takes several hours). The Tesla’s rapid acceleration comes from the ability of an electric motor to deliver its maximum amount of torque at whatever speed the motor is turning."

"Torque is the scientific term for turning force, and it is measured in newton-metres (Nm). The Tesla’s motor has a torque of 400Nm all the way to 5,100 revolutions per minute. An internal-combustion engine, by contrast, produces maximum torque only at certain speeds. The 2.0 litre engine of a Lotus Elise S2, for instance, peaks at 213Nm at 4,400rpm. And, whereas a gearbox is needed to use."
REFERENCE (en référence à ): TTXGP: Electric Motorcycles Race Isle of Man - Isle of Man TT and Street Racing - Motorcycle USA (cf.(afficher sur) Google Sidewiki)

RELATED POSTS

F1, Formula One Racing's contribution to Innovations_20 ways F1™ is changing our world

What is significant Innovation, What to Innovate, Where to Innovate, How to Innovate_ Back to Basics

Read more: http://conversations-on-innovations.blogspot.com/search?q=David+Mackay#ixzz0jfsx9a9v
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

Read more: http://conversations-on-innovations.blogspot.com/search?q=Electric+cars#ixzz0jflzOg6J
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

4 types of Innovation: Sustainables vs Disruptives

In her post "Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation" Ann Handley quotes Eric Zeitoun's 4 point definition of two important Innovation Typologies, Continuity intelligently named Sustainable in today's jargon versus Disruptive. This is one of the most concise definitions I have come across.

The four distinct types of Innovations are:

1.Product optimization (which seeks to optimize a product or service’s usage)
2.Brand extension (stretches a brand’s equity into adjacent spaces)
3.Target ownership (to own a greater share of a specific target’s wallet across multiple segments, whether the segment is attitudinal, psycho-graphic or demographic)
4.Category leadership (to sustain or achieve leadership by re-shaping consumer attitudes and behaviors in a given segment or industry).

Innovation types 1. and 2. (referred to as “sustained innovations”) usually tend to build off of an existing frame of reference. Therefore, although safer, they are likely to only generate limited incremental value.

Innovation types 3. and 4. (referred to as “disruptive innovations”) on the other hand can yield much larger growth, but they are also more capital intensive and more unpredictable. Indeed because they have the power to shift the paradigm, they can set new standards and change consumer behaviors, but they require significant time and dollar investments.

Tips to "weather" current recession and pit falls management must try to avoid are outlined in an equally concise manner.

The easy conclusion could be to argue that in a period of recession, marketers should focus on “sustained innovation” because senior management is more likely to sign off on an inexpensive innovation initiative, which can repay for itself in the short term. Unfortunately, what could sound like a really good idea may turn out to be a really dangerous one.

"Recessions usually act in a two-step process as filters or regulators that purge weaker players from the marketplace. The structurally weak players are typically the first to go. These are the companies whose business model is fundamentally flawed or those whose cost structure cannot suffer tighter margins."

Then follows the players whose relevance keeps eroding over time. These players tend to suffer more towards the end of a recession cycle, and generally get hit when they think they have reached the end of the tunnel.

Why do these companies lose relevance? They do so because of their inability to shape, grasp or influence societal shifts, and a lack of vision or willingness to take risks. Organizations that are not willing to constantly invest in ‘disruptive innovation’ quickly become irrelevant and vulnerable in a recession. So what does this mean in terms of innovation? It means that marketers need to find smarter ways to invest in ‘disruptive innovation,’ rather than simply pull the plug. Recessions should be viewed as an opportunity to re-assess the effectiveness of innovation processes. To do this, you must:

•Have a clear strategic goal for your innovation. Make sure it fits into your marketing strategy and your business strategy.
•Create a focused ideation process that accelerates the pace of the consumer’s validation of ideas and prototypes ideas at a lower cost.

Read the full article...
- Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog (view on Google Sidewiki)

PS. These concepts take an ominous connotation when brought into the environmental, climate change realms whereby the use of "sustainability" tends to lead one's thouhgts. Then that's "Marketeering" for you.

Acknowledgement.
Ann Handley, MarketingProfs Daily Fix
Let me thank Dee Gardner dgmsouth who brought my attention to this article via Twitter.

Link_ Metaklett-steel grips, Biomimicry and Shape Memory Alloy meanders

Metaklett-steel grips, Biomimicry and Shape Memory Alloy meanders

One rarely gets a chance, when talking of innovations in the very mature steel industry, to slip in such recent fields such as:

A. Biomimicry, ‘Learning from Nature’, whereby scientific and engineering innovations are inspired by performances and functionalities observed in Nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements— and emulates them to solve human problems and meet human requirements.

B. Shape Memory Alloys the metallurgists contribution to the overall field of so called ‘intelligent or smart materials’ and


This opportunity, rife with menace, arose and matured following the public announcement on 3-Sep-2009 by the Technical University of Munich, (TUM.) of their new clip and close, pull and open, hook and loop fastener steel strips. The news was rapidly up-taken by several of the main science magazines More cf. link above.

Innocentive Challenges in the field of Corrosion_Link

Innocentive Challenges in the field of Corrosion
LINK