Innovation Starts with Ideation

To find the best design and create the optimal solution, it is of utmost importance to fully understand the challenge at hand. IDT works very closely with surgeon champions and/or the clinical team to truly understand the challenges they face and what the optimal solution would look like for them.

The next steps in IDT’s development process are ideation and innovation. This is where we use the fully defined project challenge to create as many probable and improbable design solutions as possible. All ideas that are on the table or on the whiteboard are then considered to determine which idea or combination of ideas looks most promising.

IDT’s engineers work extensively with various rapid prototyping techniques, which allows us to create several design ideas in rapid succession during a time when ‘experimentation’ is less costly (see IDT’s Approach). Prototyping technique, material selection and use of off-the-shelf components are dependent on the prototype’s purpose.

While finding a quick solution is often the primary focus of solving a challenge, IDT’s ideation and innovation process, coupled with rapid prototyping of multiple design ideas, creates a powerful dynamic synergy. This dynamic synergy allows us to quickly create and evaluate many different designs, which eventually leads to the optimum solution that provides the greatest value to our clients.

Once several of the top conceptual ideas have been identified, several reviews are suggested:

• Review and learn from the literature
• Review and understand what the current market looks like
• Review the prior art to better navigate the patent field

To learn more, visit our Background & Review page.