17 JUN 2011
The Innovation Pipeline at GEA convinced the jurors:
GEA Group distinguished as Best Innovator
GEA Group, of Düsseldorf, Germany has won the competition for “Best Innovators 2010 – 2011” in the sector of mechanical engineering. The competition – sponsored by A.T. Kearney and the German magazine Wirtschafts¬Woche, and supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) – honors every year those companies and management teams that practice effective and sustainable innovation management. The award of this prize took place after the Best Innovator Executive Roundtable held on 9 June of this year in the BMWi Conference Centre in Berlin. Dr. Hugo Blaum, Member of the Executive Council of GEA Group and President of Refrigeration Technologies, accepted the prize on behalf of GEA Group from Ernst Burgbacher, State Parliamentary Secretary of BMWi, and from Roland Tichy, Editor-in-Chief of WirtschaftsWoche.
Innovation is a key factor for success
The prize jurors awarded GEA Group this distinction for its meritorious innovation culture in the mechanical engineering and machine construction sector. As Dr. Kai Engel, partner in the business consultancy A.T. Kearney and initiator of the competition, explained: “GEA Group has clearly and definitely defined its growth objectives within the context of innovation.”
Dr. Blaum emphasized, “Population growth, urbanization, climate change, and many additional issues demand innovations. As a corporate group that is at home, for example, in the food and beverages sector, in chemical and power engineering, as well as in building services and in agriculture, GEA is willing and able to make a sustainable contribution to a livable future.” To ensure that this takes place in a goal-directed manner, GEA Group has implemented its so-called Innovation Pipeline.This management instrument supports the innovation process beginning with the idea, including feasibility studies, and extending throughout development to the finished product and its systematic further development. Additional GEA management tools – including the idea management tool i²m, a knowledge-management process that includes all company locations, as well as in-house innovation competition – additionally promote fruitful innovative results.
The Innovation Pipeline provides space for new ideas
The GEA Innovation Pipeline accordingly ensures that promising ideas from all GEA companies in the world – both from the management as well as staff levels – are recognized, selected, and successfully implemented in a goal-directed process. This is a process that often includes a number of companies in GEA Group. The Innovation Pipeline gives the participating teams space to develop their ideas, helps them in formulation of objectives, supports them in reaching their goal, and promotes cooperation.
As Dr. Blaum stresses, “This shortens time-to-market results, raises work efficiency, and eventually enhances customer benefits.”