To the casual observer, Ingersoll Rand's new R-Series rotary screw air compressors and C-Series centrifugal air compressors seem typical of new product introductions. A list of attributes includes improved reliability, efficiency and productivity. But in fact, these products mark a new chapter in product development for the company's Industrial Technologies Sector as it applies Outcome-Driven Innovation to develop products that help solve customers' needs.

As Manlio Valdes, vice president, Global Product Management for IR's Industrial Technologies Sector, notes, it is easy for a company such as Ingersoll Rand to say it is innovative but more difficult to determine "what it means to us and how do we do it."

"There is still a lot of what I call 'magic' out there," said Valdes of how some companies are approaching innovation. "People think they can jump in, read a couple articles, run some software, conduct one survey and you become the company at the cutting edge. Frankly, I don't think it works that way. There is a lot of hard work and discipline that needs to go into transforming yourself, not just with what you know but the culture inside to make it work."

In the case of these new compressors, Ingersoll Rand surveyed 2,500 customers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and China. Respondents were surveyed in 13 different industries and ranged from small business owners to plant managers to engineers. Using a methodology called Outcome-Driven Innovation, the company's research team sought to understand not just what feature set in a new product customers would like, but what jobs they were doing, what their pain points were and what particular features customers would actually value.

The Real Magic

While the new products were based on customer desires for energy efficiency, reliability and improved productivity, Valdes said the "real magic" becomes trying to understand "the nuances in a new product design in order to really determine where you should invest and spend money to create value and where it is just adding cost for you and your customer."

James Bolch, president of the Industrial Technologies Sector, wryly commented, "You can have the best new products in the world, the most innovative, but if customers don't buy them, it's strictly interesting, it's not business." Bolch said the challenge for Ingersoll Rand was to uncover customers' "unmet needs -- what is the problem they are trying to solve, not necessarily what kind of air compressor they want or what kind of tool they want." Pursuing that knowledge, he said, has been a "revelation."

As an example, Bolch points to an experience with Club Car, Ingersoll Rand's golf cart and utility vehicle unit. GPS units had been introduced in golf carts as a convenience. Golfers could use them, for example, to calculate the distance to the pin. "It was interesting technology but the problem was, it didn't bring value to the people that owned the golf course," Bolch observed. Course owners wanted a way to reduce their costs or increase revenue. By integrating GPS technology with the drive system of the golf cart, Club Car and its partner GPS Industries were able to do just that. Carts could be configured so that they could be driven only after the pro shop remotely enabled them, preventing golfers from driving off without paying. And by laying out electronic parameters for the carts, golfers could be prevented from driving them off the course, out of bounds or at an unsafe speed down a steep slope.

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