Providing New Solutions – with Help from an Online Community
GE is joining the list of enterprises utilizing a community of internal and external people having specific knowledge to more quickly and economically deliver new capabilities and support innovation initiatives
At Chicago’s mHub, entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, and designers sit side-by-side. Nearby, 3D printers, laser cutters, and CNC machines work to crank out quick prototypes, while the in-house micro-factory handles small production runs. This is home to GE Fuse, a new innovation platform and community focused on speeding up the development of new products for GE customers. Fuse is one of GE’s many new approaches — from GE Ventures to GENIUSLINK to FastWorks, the company’s internal lean startup initiative. GE’s GENIUSLINK team, the company’s open innovation and crowdsourcing experts, launched the Fuse business model.
“The concept [of Fuse] is around sourcing different problems from GE customers and then working with an online community to solve those problems,” says Amelia Gandara, the Community Leader for GE Fuse. “Once we have a potential solution, that’s where I hand over these potential solutions to Deborah [Brown, Fuse’s Rapid Prototype Leader,] and her team, and they make those solutions a reality.” Brown’s role is to take potential solutions, prototype them, and then work toward getting a final product to the customer.
June 2, 2017 CAIL …. Innovation Industry commentary