DELIBERATE COMBINATION

“What provokes the continous reduction of our learning capacity is the fact that mutations generate new opportunities which were not envisaged in our preexisting genetic tissue. Innovation is simply about modifying past elements.” (Vicari, 1998)

The deliberate combination of preexisting elements is a technique aimed to generate change.

“The generation of different elements…may arise from the deliberate combination of preexisting elements, briefly, a construction. A combination of action unities and changes that result in a new unity.
The basic elements for innovation are prior to innovation which derives from their original rearrangement. For example, Henry Ford combined the order clearing process used by a mail-order sale company with the mechanic car assembly process. As a matter of fact, both processes existed on their own. The innovation which changed the course of history is represented by the combination of something already in existence. Another example taken from the car industry is that of kanban which was developed by Toyota.

Example 1

The two major pillars of the Toyota system are just in time and self-motivation. Kanban is used to make them operational. The kanban idea derived from the observation of an American supermarket organization.
In 1956, during one of my business travels to the United States, I visited the production plants at the General Motors, at Ford and in other factories. However, I was most impressed by the huge number of supermarkets in that country.
To compare cars and supermarkets can appear quite odd. However, for a long time, after examining the organization of an American supermarket, we analyzed parallels between the supermarket production system and car production through the so called just in time. A supermarket is a place where customers can take what they need in the desired time and quantity.
From the supermarket concept we borrowed a crucial idea: there is a process “at the source” of the production line, which is a kind of shop and a ” following” process (customer) which moves on to the initial process (supermarket) to purchase what needed (goods) in the desired time and quantity. Then the initial process suddenly produces the quantity that was just removed (shelf stocking)1.

[…] As well as the basic elements of biologic evolution are virtually not finite in nature, the basic elements of company evolution are available in large quantity.
Therefore an essential aspect of creativity is to modify things already in existence, id. basic elements, new elementary components, useful to innovation building. For example, it is necessary to develop new ideas, new projects, new products and new initiatives.
To this purpose, the company can either use the material which was produced autonomously, by chance or by mistake, or provoke intentional variations. The problem does not concern the availability of elementary variations: their use is small if compared to their availability.
Briefly, the problem is to realize when a combination of existing elements forms a new independent unity.
Henry Ford worked out his assembly line idea examining the order clearing system of a mail-order sale company. However, we could ask ourselves whether the activity of a salesman working for a mail-order sale company had ever been detected in the past by other entrepreneurs or managers from a production company. Or whether a clerk’s activity had ever been compared to a worker’s activity. It had probably occured in the past: mail-order companies were visited from time to time by theit suppliers...It had probably occurred far more than once but – given the same situation - nobody else had ever seen what Ford realized. Henry Ford’s idea differed from any previous remark or association because it was acknowledged as a brand new concept or process.
The available material for innovation was exactly the same; however, he realized its importance for innovation. His perception of change from the existing material made the difference.
You could wonder: when is a new combination acknowledged as such? It is when you face a new problem. In any case, it is when any association helps to solve a given problem that was already in existence or that was developed together with that association.
“There is an endless number of possible alternatives but they are not usually taken into great consideration. In fact, they are not seen as something new. The reason is that they cannot provoke any relevant disturbances within the organization, because the system is not problematic enough and therefore it does not need any new variation. However, solutions can only derive from problems and only existing variations - evident to the many – are considered as something new.
Looking for variations helps to realize that a change in the system could be a potential solution to any given problem. If considered in a different time, the same change would not be perceived as a real change or as something new.
How often do managers or common people come across solutions borrowed from others’ mind? And how often do you overlook new ideas? What we sometimes call luck is nothing else than a synchronism between a problem and its solution” (Vicari, 1998)