Exciting news

Agile or Lean or Both

Having completed the year Lecturing to undergraduates, at Wolverhampton University, its time to reflex.

Lean or Agile or, this new term Lagile. Which to choose. Why bother at all.

I posed the question, if you were selling a product and making over 80% profit would you bother with lean or agile?
What is the business benefit? Why would we bother? what is the business imperative? where is the real benefit (minus the investment) in £ or $ or DON’T JUST DO IT ‘CAUSE IT SOUNDS GOOD.

Clearly, we must think of lean / agile manufacturing in the business context. That all actions for improvement MUST have tangible / measurable benefits. There is no point in pouring £ks in to refining a process of a product or service that no one wants.

Many text book examples refer to repetitive processes, medium to high volume. So how do we manage Lean / Agile in bespoke Engineering?

All good questions :

Something to guide you

Pricing for Innovation

How to set the right price for innovation.

Whether you are a new enterprise looking for a company-wide pricing model, or a well-established organisation planning to launch a new product, the initial prices will significantly determine your position within the market. A position that is hard to change. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of poor pricing models price products too low, leaving substantial amounts of money on the table and making customers raise doubts about the quality of the offering. On the other hand, if the price is too high, it can scare customers away.

Content

  • The importance of price in supporting innovation and long-term profit growth 
  • Common mistakes when pricing new technologies
  • Why segmentation is fundamental to an optimised value-based pricing strategy
  • Tools and methodologies to establish customer value / price
    • Perceived value
    • Financial value
    • Utilising customer research
  • Using different price structures to communicate value and overcoming barriers to adoption e.g. leasing, pay per use, performance-based pricing.
  • Supporting price implementation through the sales team and wider organisation.

Where does Technology Readiness measures fit in the Virtual world ?

Its interesting to think about how to measure technology development .

TRL and MRL are no longer sufficient measures, given that we are developing processes and product design simulation capability

Technology evaluation, the discussion continues

TaBA Associates approach
interaction of TRL MRL and the new kids on the block VERL and SCRL. details of which are available on request

We need to think about accelerating technology to market, and thus the measures based on physical prototypes needs to be rethought. At TaBA Associates we are working with leading Universities to further the debate.

Salop to SDE Technology -Growing with SMEs

During 2019 and through the year of 2020 TaBA Associates have developed the licience agreement for Salop Design and Engineering (now SDE Technology) to use the HFQ technology .

Richard Homden and Jonathan Watkins sealed the deal with a handshake

Les Gill that led to the re branding of Salop Design and Engineering , to SDE Technology, lightweighting experts https://www.sde.technology/.

Les is also on the Advisory Panel for SDE Technology, supporting their new business strategy development.

TaBA Les Gill , saying that the team of Roland and Shirley at Cherry Branding are great assets to draw upon for the rebranding and PR strategy. Helping shaping things to come

Christopher Greenough CCO
showing us the new SDE Technology power wall marketing assets

Off of the back of the intensive work to deliver a workable licience agreement with Impressions Technology Ltd, on the use of HFQ . TaBA are the project leaders for the lightweighting development at SDE Technology.

transforming the business, looks really smart
Salop to SDE Technology

The story doesn’t end there,

TaBA Associates , Les Gill And Gareth Purdy have been working with SDE on, tactical factory transformation.

Using Standard Operating processes , 5s and Work cell visualisations techniques to improve operating efficiencies.

Drive down inventory, improve throughput, Reduce operating cost.

See The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

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Inspiring Investment

We have a great day with the Roderick Beer of UKBAA and Ian Tracey of Innovate UK.

This course was presented by leading knowledge holders in UK funding and investment structures.

We discussed our approach to our Business Plan  and Pitch deck.

For those of you reading this, how many hours and days have you put in to your Business Plan?

How long have you worked on your pitch deck?

Just think that the pitch deck is like the entrance porch to the rest of your house ( Business Plan)

With out a polished, impact full Pitch it is unlikely that your investors will want to come through the door.

When the slides come through Ill share them here.

TaBA Associates are well placed to advise you on the latest thinking of investment pitch decks . And this leads us nicely in to the Business Planning processes we can support you on

 

 

 

 

Midlands Innovation Commercialisation of Research Accelerator Launch

This was an interesting launch of  MICRA. 

You’ll be able to see from the link, that 8 Universities have come together with Research England to harness the emerging technology and give it the push its’ needed towards commercialisation

It was interesting, I did wonder whether the scheme/ Universities will be able to resource the transition processes. Noting that these are prime research bodies, they don’t by definition, have the experience of commercialisation of innovation (generally) .

Its one thing developing Tech its another skill set that is needed to bring the Customer expectation though to the research teams.

It will be interesting to see how this is handled.

 

 

Specialised Vehicle Event 15th October

👍 TaBA Associates Initial feedback~ in advance of the comprehensive slide deck,

Hosted by the KTN  at London Fire Brigade

Ryan Fisher, KTN and Venn Chesterton, Innovate UK gave a good introduction to the event.

Recognising that Specialist Vehicles is a unique grouping made up , in part, by

Construction, Waste , Emergency and Support Agencies

IDP15 £22 millions with a deadline of 6th December 2018. If you miss this calling , then there is likely to be a repeat next year ( 12 months)

Dr. Anna Wise gave a brief overview of the Faraday Initiative

Brian Robinson of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, gave an overview and Lessons from Recent Projects.

Read More

Working with Innovation

We are working well with innovators in many fields and they are seeing that our support really delivers Value to our customers.

You’ve heard about the Business Model Canvas, a great tool to develop and validate your Business Plan.

We have found that many Innovators,being new to the market,don’t have the detail in place to exploit this process in full.

At TaBA our Associates will work with you to match the most appropriate methodologies with your company maturity. We are using the Value Proposition Canvas and find it a more appropriate means to define your Customer needs and then match this with your Value Proposition. It all adds to a invaluable experience.

Like many things in life ‘its simple’ although the real benefits are extracted through the collaboration with TaBA‘s small, but beautifully formed team.

 

Value Proposition Canvas