Innovation Toolkits

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Description

"On Professor Von Hippel’s website, it is stated that innovation toolkits are used to organize and support information that is shared amongst various users and producers of projects. In one of his papers entitled “Perspective: User toolkits for innovation,” Von Hippel describes how user toolkits can be used to help manufacturers and companies determine the users’ need-related aspects of products and services. The users are provided with “user toolkits for innovation,” to help the manufacturer outsource tasks that would normally take much time and effort within the company. One of the first areas that user toolkits have been used was in the design and manufacturing of custom integrated circuits. In this field it was critical that manufacturers understood user needs because it could result in months of delays costing the company thousands of dollars. LSI Logic produced a software design tool that its customers could use to design circuits themselves. This move helped LSI grow to be one of the major players in the custom IC market and competitors were soon moving in the same direction.

“Toolkits for user innovation are coordinated sets of “user-friendly” design tools that enable users to develop new product innovations for themselves. The toolkits are not general purpose. Rather, they are specific to the design challenges of a specific field or sub field, such as integrated circuit design or software product design.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_von_Hippel)