Lucrative opportunities which scaled new heights of achievement and profits often first appeared as problems.

For example, Thomas Holley a paper mill worker had an idea to take paper scraps and bind them into pads, inventing what we now call 'legal pads.' Problems, like what do to with all this wasted paper are really opportunities.

Creative ideas, based on innovation, have long been recognized as tools that make a huge difference in any business enterprise. If only businesses would have enough of them.

A Shortage of Ideas Or Just Poor Planning?

One reason for the shortage of creative ideas is that it takes too long to formulate the big ideas that revolutionize a business. This is especially true when relying on a handful of already very busy senior managers to generate the ideas. Yet this need not be the case. If a company can simply enlist and incorporate its people into the task of generating ideas for improvement,  it will make a big difference. With dozens and maybe even hundreds of people seriously and enthusiastically focusing their minds on finding ways of improvement the big ideas occur quickly.

Incorporating ordinary staff in the generation of ideas is actually the real secret  behind the amazing productivity of the greatest manufacturing companies in the world. People are, of course, assets. Too often, they are looked at only as a cost and in that light it's difficult to both invest in their development and tap into their creative ideas.

Tony Kerwin, general manager, Canadian Blue Bird Coach Ltd., a 2005 IndustryWeek Top 25 North American Manufacturing Best Plant Finalist, has led such a transformation. "At Blue Bird we were the typical manufacturing organization where the ideas generally came from management and the shop floor just worked and grumbled at some of the 'not so brilliant' changes that sometimes got redone many times. However, we have transformed. Three years ago we generated about a dozen ideas, this past year we generated over 400 ideas which were implemented. It is important to realize that as a result of changing our product mix we have less than half as many people as we had three years ago," Kerwin noted.

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"Some of the ideas we have implemented have been quite simple saving us a minimal amount of money, but most certainly affecting someone's quality of work life; others have been substantial. The key is that every manager and supervisor has a target they must meet through working with their teams. This quota is part of their performance assessment and is charted and graphed monthly. This way we are putting muscle behind our Kaizen approach making it habit forming. Team members are encouraged to work with their colleagues and other technical resources to vet out their ideas and only get credit for those implemented."

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