Vernetzte Expertise: Wie Co-Innovation die Lösungsfindung revolutioniert

How would you describe co-innovation in your own working environment and what specific elements of this approach do you find particularly valuable?

From my point of view co-innovation means that many industry experts and method experts come together to work on a project. They work together in a team to solve the same problem together.

For me, as someone who is in the field of Al, I can work together with other experts who have a different view, because they work in other fields like hardware, cloud or software architecture. While we are working on a real use case it's particularly valuable that we can share knowledge with each other and thereby gain knowledge from each other.

Shubham Thakkar in action developing a software architecture.

What advantages do you see in co-innovation, especially when it comes to solving complex problems? Do you have a specific example from one of your projects?

One big topic right now is that Al is evolvlng and that everyone would like to implement an Al solution into their use case to solve complex problems. But Al is not comparable to a software part. lt is a combination of hardware but also software architecture and many other parts. When we work on a co-innovation format, we are working on these different streams parallelly and in a good combination.

In our Heimdall project for example, we had to solve a very complex industrial problem. We had to include various parts in it. Those were Al, software hardware and a cloud solution. In a project like this I get many insights from other experts, who are not working in myfield. 1 know how Al works but I do not know how to integrate the cloud connection prooerly or ensure the function of the microphone we used in the project. Those were parts in the project that helped me to collect my data and where experts in these fields help me to come to a functioning solution in the end.

Always in pursuit of new insights: Shubham Thakkar.

What challenges do you often encounter in co-innovation projects and how do you deal with them? Are there any best practices you can share?

In co-innovation there is not just one company that works on the project. We are forming a new team consisting of companies, with different kind of people who have a huge variation of expertise. Sometimes it is hard to find a good way of working together and to plan the streams in a way they can work effectively.

A helpful solution to these kinds of challenges is the Implementation of the Serum Master rote. The Serum Master focuses on the way the team is working and helps if there needs to be an lmprovement. They keep an eye on the needs of all team members and howthey can be met In the work environment. On the regular Sprint Plannings, Dailies and Sprint Reviews they are monitoring the project status and the environment continuously. The Scrum Master can evaluate if some developments go into a wrong direction or can give a review or if task already has taken too much time.

So, I would say there are some challenges in a co-innovation project but all of them are solvable.

How do you see the future of co-innovation in an industrial context? What developments and trends should companies and experts keep an eye on?

All big companies need a co-innovation format in my opinion. Let's take the semiconductor industry as an example. They are solely focussing on the production of chips. lf they want to innovate their shopfloors to get more efflciency in their production, they are dependent on experts of other fields to implement new solutions.

When we look at the topic of GEN-Al and Large Language Models it is the same case. Every company wants to use the advantages of these technologies but the knowledge to implement these features is divided among various experts. That's why we need a way to bring those experts together and to help them focus on the solution for solving the challenge of the company. That's why I see the growing need of co-innovation formats in the future.

Co-Innovation at its best: Shubham explains our method to some Smart Systems Hub visitors.