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Introducing innovation can help you to:

improve productivity

reduce costs

be more competitive

build the value of your brand

establish new partnerships and relationships

increase turnover and improve profitability

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The successful exploitation of new ideas is crucial to a business being able to improve its processes, bring new and improved products and services to market, increase its efficiency and, most importantly, improve its profitability.

Marketplaces - whether local, regional, national or global - are becoming highly competitive. Competition has increased as a result of wider access to new technologies and the increased trading and knowledge-sharing opportunities offered by the Internet.

This guide explains how you can make innovation a key business process and outlines the different approaches you can take. It gives you advice on planning for innovation and creating the right business environment to develop your ideas. It also outlines the help and support available to innovative businesses.

The business case for innovation

It is important to be clear about the difference between invention and innovation. Invention is a new idea. Innovation is the commercial application and successful exploitation of the idea.

Fundamentally, innovation means introducing something new into your business. This could be:

improving or replacing business processes to increase efficiency and productivity, or to enable the business to extend the range or quality of existing products and/or services

developing entirely new and improved products and services - often to meet rapidly changing customer or consumer demands or needs

adding value to existing products, services or markets to differentiate the business from its competitors and increase the perceived value to the customers and markets

Innovation can mean a single major breakthrough - e.g. a totally new product or service. However, it can also be a series of small, incremental changes.

Whatever form it takes, innovation is a creative process. The ideas may come from:

inside the business, e.g. from employees, managers or in-house research and development work

outside the business, e.g. suppliers, customers, media reports, market research published by another organisation, or universities and other sources of new technologies

Success comes from filtering those ideas, identifying those that the business will focus on and applying resources to exploit them.

Introducing innovation can help you to:

improve productivity

reduce costs

be more competitive

build the value of your brand

establish new partnerships and relationships

increase turnover and improve profitability

Businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of:

losing market share to competitors

falling productivity and efficiency

losing key staff

experiencing steadily reducing margins and profit

going out of business

Approaches to innovation

Innovation in your business can mean introducing new or improved products, services or processes.

Analyse the marketplace

There's no point considering innovation in a vacuum. To move your business forward, study your marketplace and understand how innovation can add value to your customers. For more information on analysing your marketplace, see the page in this guide on planning innovation.

Identify opportunities for innovation

You can identify opportunities for innovation by adapting your product or service to the way your marketplace is changing. For example, if you're a specialist hamburger manufacturer, you might consider lowering the fat content in your burgers to appeal to the health-conscious consumer.

You could also develop your business by identifying a completely new product. For example, you could start producing vegetarian as well as meat burgers.

You could innovate by introducing new technology, techniques or working practices - perhaps using better processes to give a more consistent quality of product.

If research shows people have less time to go to the stores, you could overhaul your distribution processes, offering customers a home-delivery service, possibly tied in with online and telephone ordering.

If your main competitor's products have a reputation for being cheap and cheerful, rather than trying to undercut them on price you could innovate by revamping your marketing to emphasise the quality of your merchandise - and consider charging a premium for them.

Planning innovation

Some innovative ideas may just come to you out of the blue. However, you should ideally have:

innovation as part of your business strategy

a strategic vision of how you want your business to develop - if you dedicate your time to monitoring trends in your business sector, you can then focus your innovative efforts on the most important areas.

Innovation will not only improve the chances of your business surviving, but also help it to thrive and drive increased profits. There are lots of practical ways of assessing whether your ideas have profit potential:

Assess the competition

Find out who your competitors are and where they operate. Use the Internet and advertising sources such as the Yellow Pages to find out about their products, prices and operating culture. This can give you an overview of their selling points, as well as any areas you might be able to exploit.

For example, if the competition is focused on value for money, you might want to emphasise the quality of your product or service. Search for business listings nationwide on the YellowPages.ca or Canada411.ca websites.

Study market or industry trends

Awareness of the climate in which your business is operating will help you to plan.

You can find a lot of information about your industry on the Internet. Business and trade magazines will also feature useful articles.

Build a relationship with your customers

It's not enough simply to know who your customer base is. You need to communicate effectively with them as well.

Communication involves not only listening to their needs but also actively observing their behaviour around current products and services and generating ideas on how you can make improvements.

Involve your suppliers and other business partners

Pooling your resources with your suppliers or other business partners will help to produce and develop creative ideas. Potential partnerships can also be developed through business networking opportunities.

Next, consider what taking a particular innovative step could mean for your business. Ask yourself:

what impact it will have on your business processes and practices

what extra training your staff may require

what extra resources you may need

how you'll finance the work

whether you'll be creating any intellectual property that will need protecting

Finally, you should include your vision in your business plan by:

putting down your goals, both long and short term and detailing how you intend to achieve them

linking goals to financial targets, such as achieving a specific turnover by a set date

reviewing your plan regularly

Encourage innovation in your business

There are many sources you can use to help generate new ideas for the business.

Suppliers, business partners and business network contacts can all make valuable contributions to the creative process, as well as providing support and encouragement.

Your employees are also a vital asset in generating innovative ideas.

To get the most from them, you need to create an innovative environment and encourage creative thinking.

Steps to promote innovation

Make sure you have processes and events to capture ideas. For example, you could set up suggestion boxes around the workplace or hold regular workshops or occasional company away days to brainstorm ideas.

Create a supportive atmosphere in which people feel free to express their ideas without the risk of criticism or ridicule.

Encourage risk taking and experimentation - don't penalise people who try new ideas that fail.

Promote openness between individuals and teams. Good ideas and knowledge in one part of your business should be shared with others. Teamwork, newsletters and intranets can all help your people share information and encourage innovation.

Stress that people at all levels of the business share responsibility for innovation, so everybody feels involved in taking the business forward. The fewer the layers of management or decision making in your organisation, the more people feel their ideas matter.

Reward innovation and celebrate success. Appropriate incentives can play a significant role in encouraging staff to think creatively.

Look for imagination and creativity when recruiting new employees. Remember that innovative thinkers aren't always those with the most impressive list of qualifications.

Funding innovation

There are a number of ways you can fund your growth through innovation, either by using your own funds or tapping into external funding such as loans or equity finance.

However, any route to external funding will need a high-quality business plan that describes your business and sets out detailed forecasts of where it's going.

Businesses often turn to their banks for a line of credit or loans for additional finance, depending on their borrowing needs.

If you're willing to relinquish some control of your business to external investors, you could consider using equity finance. The two main routes for this are investment from business angels and venture capital firms:

Business angels are wealthy individuals who invest in private companies, typically from $30,000 to $500,000.

Venture capital firms provide higher levels of investment in return for shares in the business.

Government programs

You may also wish to consider applying for a government program. This will only usually cover part of your project, but you will retain control of the shares in your business. Consult Programs - R&D and innovation.

Other sources of help

Small and medium-sized businesses can claim tax refunds and credits on appropriate research and development spending.

Original document, Use innovation to grow your business, © Crown copyright 2009
Source: Business Link UK (now GOV.UK/Business)
Adapted for Québec by Info entrepreneurs

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The successful exploitation of new ideas is crucial to a business being able to improve its processes, bring new and improved products and services to market, increase its efficiency and, most importantly, improve its profitability. Marketplaces - whether local, regional, national or global - are becoming highly competitive.

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Improvise version of existing system

Work offline

Cheaper option

Portable - can access anywhere and anytime

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Measure manually

Prompt errors

Consume time and work

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Image Processing Based Mobile Antibiotics Sensitivity Test (MAST) Application

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Image Processing Based Mobile Antibiotics Sensitivity Test (MAST) Application

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Author: Sharifah Nurhidayah Syed Mostamam
Matric No: 57817

Abstract
An image processing based mobile is built to measure the radius of inhibition zone. In Antibiotic Sensitivity test (Kirby-Bauer test), bacteria applied on a Petri dish is subjected to various antibiotics. The inhibition zone is a circular area around the spot of antibiotic in which the bacteria is not encroaching into the region. The process of measuring the radius of the antibiotic can be automated using image processing-based algorithm. In this work, an algorithm will be developed which will detect the zones of inhibition.

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This stand-alone device is called Oxoid Aura image antibiotic sensitivity test system

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Abstract

Introduction

Currently there is renewed interest in the manner in which susceptibility testing is performed in the UK and Ireland and there is a move away from the comparative method of testing that was introduced in the early 1970s. Although Stokes' method of testing has many qualities, it has suffered ad hoc changes by most laboratories using the method and has never been amended or supported in a formal manner, with the consequence that a uniform method of performing and interpreting the test no longer exists. A move to change from this method of testing has been initiated by the recognition that results from sensitivity testing can provide more information beyond those solely for an individual patient. For example, zone diameter data can be combined from several centres to monitor levels of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. However, to achieve this, a standardized method has to be used which relies on the measurement of zones of inhibition for interpretation.

In 1998 the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) published in its newsletter details of a standardized method of disc testing which correlated zones of inhibition with its published MIC breakpoints. The introduction of this method has created the opportunity for measuring and recording zone diameter data which can be used to enhance the information gained from susceptibility testing. Manual measurement of zones of inhibition can take a considerable amount of time, which makes the method impractical for some diagnostic laboratories. To overcome this problem the BSAC has suggested that interpretation can be made by comparing test zones with those of a template constructed using the zone diameter breakpoints given in the recommendations (Figure 1). Although this is a helpful compromise, valuable information is lost because actual zone diameter data are not recorded. This process can be speeded up if zones are measured by an automated zone reading device and ideally, this device should provide a quick, easy to operate, reliable system that integrates with laboratory reporting and data handling systems.

In this study we have evaluated the Aura image antibiotic sensitivity test system (Oxoid, Basingstoke, UK) as a stand-alone machine and compared it with manual measurement of zones of inhibition. In the first study, we compared zone measurements for organisms taken from City Hospital's laboratory collection of clinical isolates and in the second study, compared results obtained over a 4 week period by the diagnostic laboratory using a template to determine sensitivity, with interpretation based on manual and automated measurement of zones.

Materials and methods

Method of disc testing

Disc testing was undertaken following the recommendations of the BSAC, using Iso-Sensitest agar (ISTA)(CM471, Oxoid) poured to a depth of 4 mm in 90 mm Petri dishes. For the growth of fastidious organisms, ISTA was supplemented with 5% defibrinated horse blood (Tissue Culture Services, Botolph Claydon, UK) or 5% defibrinated horse blood and 20 mg/L nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (Sigma Chemicals, Poole, UK) as necessary. An inoculum equivalent to semi-confluence was used and plates were incubated at 35-37°C in air, except for fastidious organisms (haemophili, pneumococci and neisseriae) where the atmosphere was enriched with 4-6% CO ₂, for 18-20 h. For manual reading, zone diameters were measured with a ruler and recorded in mm. Interpretation of sensitivity was determined by comparing the zone of inhibition with the zone diameter breakpoints recommended by the BSAC.

Organisms

Study 1.

A total of 217 defined strains from the laboratory collection, comprising 13 Escherichia coli, 13 Klebsiella spp., nine Morganella morganii, six Acinetobacter spp., nine Serratia spp., 10 Enterobacter spp., 14 Proteus mirabilis, three Proteus vulgaris, three Providencia stuartii, 12 Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 20 enterococci, 20 Haemophilus influenzae, 22 pneumococci, 25 Staphylococcus aureus, 25 coagulase-negative staphylococci and 13 Neisseria gonorrhoeae, were studied. The antimicrobials tested against each of the genera are summarized in Table I (chosen in accordance with the BSAC guidelines).

Study 2.

Fifty-one Enterobacteriaceae and six Acinetobacter spp. isolated from systemic infections, 198 organisms isolated from urinary tract infections (including six staphylococci, two enterococci and 190 Enterobacteriaceae), 187 staphylococci and 10 H. influenzae were studied against the antimicrobials shown in Table I (chosen in accordance with the BSAC guidelines).

Aura image system

The Aura image system provides a fully automated zone measuring device which is also combined with a comprehensive epidemiological database (Figure 2). It has two unique features, the first being that a bar code can be placed on the edge of the test Petri dish on the day of inoculation and using a hand-held bar code reader this information is automatically entered into the corresponding patient/ organism database. On the second day, when zones are analysed, the bar code is automatically interpreted together with the plate image using a mirror to reflect the bar code label alongside the plate image. Secondly, the scanner has a specially written program (optical character recognition, OCR), which recognizes Oxoid antibiotic disc codes and eliminates the need for the operator to present the Petri dish to the machine in a given orientation. This facility can be disabled if discs from other suppliers are used.

For this study, using the scanner as a stand-alone system unconnected to the laboratory computing system, plates were scanned to measure zones of inhibition. The system identified the pattern of discs being studied and automatically recorded a zone diameter (in mm) next to the appropriate antibiotic disc. If the automatic zone recognition facility failed to identify the correct zone diameter for measurement, the mouse was used to 'drag and drop' the zone edge marker to the desired position. The automatic measurement and manually adjusted measurements were recorded on the results screen.

Analysis of data

For study 1, the correlation of zone diameters obtained using the Aura image system (automatic reading or reading after manual adjustment of zone fit) and those measured manually was determined using a standard spreadsheet package (Excel, Microsoft). The mean difference in zone diameter between manual measurement and the Aura image system measurement was calculated and for Enterobacteriaceae only, plotted against the mean zone diameter (mean of manual and scanner measurements) to see if there was evidence of a relationship between measurement and bias. Having established the mean zone difference, this figure was used to calculate the rate of manual correction.

For Study 2, interpretation of sensitivity was determined using BSAC zone diameter breakpoints. These break-point values were then compared with zones of inhibition obtained by manual and automated measurement and the resulting interpretation was compared with the findings obtained by the diagnostic laboratory using templates (Figure 1). The number of times there was a need to adjust zones manually when using the Aura image system was also assessed.

Results

Study 1

Correlation of manual and Aura image measurements for the combined data for Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter spp. tested against all of the antimicrobials, is shown in Figure 3 and a summary of correlation coefficients ( r) for all of the genera tested is given in Table II; r values ranged from 0.986 to 0.998. Although r values were acceptable for all genera, in the case of P. aeruginosa and particularly for strains producing pigment, there was need to adjust 38.9% of zones manually, compared with c. 1 zone in 20 for all of the other genera. When differences in zone diameter between the Aura image and manual measurement were compared, the overall mean difference was -0.18 mm with 95% confidence limits of ±2.84 mm. Although most of the scanner results for Enterobacteriaceae fell within ±3 mm of manual measurements, scanned zones for trimethoprim and ciprofloxacin were generally smaller than those measured manually. While there was no evidence of a relationship between measurement and bias for trimethoprim, there was a suggestion that variability increased with zone size for ciprofloxacin. The variation in zone size was generally greater with the larger zone sizes (>25 mm), but this may be a reflection of the difficulty in the accurate manual measurement of large zones when only one radius can be measured or when large adjacent zones overlapped. For gentamicin, scanned zone sizes tended to be larger than those measured manually (Figure 4), while observations for ceftazidime, ampicillin and cefuroxime revealed a suggestion of bias changing from negative to positive for measurements above 25 mm.

Study 2

The time periods needed to read a Petri dish containing six antibiotic discs using the template, manual measurement and the Aura scanning device were 20, 40 and 15 s, respectively. The percentage of zones measured by the Aura scanning device that required manual adjustment (as a proportion of the total number of observations for all organisms against all antibiotics studied), was 2.8% for Enterobacteriaceae, 7.1% for staphylococci, 6.7% for H. influenzae and 4.6% for urinary tract isolates, with an overall adjustment rate of 5.4%.

A summary of the agreement between the three methods of interpretation is shown in Table III. In the case of the Enterobacteriaceae, there was agreement between the three methods ranging from 68.2% to 96.5%. In the cases of disagreement between the three methods, there was generally agreement between the Aura image and manual measurement of zones. This was particularly true for tests with cefuroxime, which showed the poorest agreement (68.2%). Greatest disagreement between methods was seen with manual and template interpretation.

For staphylococci, agreement between the three methods was greater than or equal to 89.5% for all of the antimicrobials except trimethoprim, where agreement was 57.9% for the 19 strains studied. For the observations not in agreement, there was an almost equal split of agreement between interpretation by template and manual measurement or Aura and manual measurement.

For the 10 strains of H. influenzae, agreement was equal to or greater than 90% and for the urinary tract isolates, agreement ranged from 88.1% to 100%.

Discussion

Zone diameter data gained from disc sensitivity testing has been utilized for many purposes including determination of the normal distribution of 'wild sensitive' populations (these data being necessary to identify those strains with possible mechanisms of resistance), surveillance of resistance, daily monitoring of method performance with reference to control strains and interpretation of sensitivity by comparing test zones with zone diameter breakpoints. All these procedures rely on a standardized method of testing and the accurate measurement of zones of inhibition.

If data are to be combined from both manual and automated measurements, it is necessary to demonstrate that there is good correlation and agreement within acceptable limits between methods. For all genera studied in the present investigation, the correlation of zone diameter data obtained by manual and automated measurement was c.0.994 and 94.6% of zones measurements were within 3 mm. A comparison of automated reading using the OSIRIS Video Reader System (Sanofi Diagnostic Pasteur, Guildford, UK) and manual zone reading, gave a 10% difference using a criteria of 3 mm with a wide range of clinical isolates. It should also be demonstrated that there is no evidence of bias between methods of measurement. In the present study it was sometimes only possible to measure large zones of inhibition ( c. 25 mm) manually by measuring the radius and doubling it to obtain a zone diameter. It is possible that this exercise with manual measurement introduced an error which might explain the variability observed between the two methods of measurement for zones above 25 mm.

Although the use of templates is useful for laboratories who do not have an automated measuring device, this study has shown that for some antibiotic-organism combinations, interpretation of sensitivity using a template may give less reliable results than methods using zone measurement. This was observed particularly with cefuroxime when testing Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter spp. and, to a lesser extent, with ampicillin when testing the aforementioned genera and isolates from urinary tract infections. Of the eight Enterobacter spp. and five E. coli interpreted as sensitive to cefuroxime using the template, both the manual and Aura image system interpreted these strains as having intermediate sensitivity. This may not be considered a major error in reporting, however, it could have clinical significance because reporting intermediate sensitivity might influence the route of antibiotic administration or might stimulate an alternative antibiotic to be chosen for therapy. Of more importance were two strains of staphylococci reported as resistant to vancomycin using the template for interpretation. When zone diameters were measured, both organisms were found to be sensitive to vancomycin, and it was presumed that there was a mistake in manual data entry.

The speed with which the Aura image automated system measured zones, the infrequency of zone amendment ( c.1 zone per 20 measurements), the facility for random plate orientation and disc recognition, the ability to differentiate between zones of haemolysis and zones of growth inhibition and the ease with which the system can be integrated with laboratory data handling systems endorse the use of this machine for diagnostic and research purposes. The automated system, if programmed suitably, also offers the facility for automatic monitoring of the daily performance of testing procedures (where discrepant results for control strains can be flagged) and automatic reporting of susceptibility based on 'rules of interpretation' such as reporting all Proteus as resistant to nitrofurantoin irrespective of zone size.

We would like to thank Dr T. Marshall for advice on statistical analysis and Dr J. Broughall of Oxoid for his financial support and advice on this project.

References

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Evaluation of the Oxoid Aura image system for measuring zones of inhibition with the disc diffusion technique

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Currently there is renewed interest in the manner in which susceptibility testing is performed in the UK and Ireland and there is a move away from the comparative method of testing that was introduced in the early 1970s.

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IR 4.0 is growing

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The fourth industrial revolution is the current and developing environment in which disruptive technologies and trends such as the Internet of Things ( IoT), robotics, virtual reality ( VR) and artificial intelligence ( AI) are changing the way we live and work.

The third industrial revolution, sometimes called the digital revolution, involved the development of computers and IT (information technology) since the middle of the 20th century. The fourth industrial revolution is growing out of the third but is considered a new era rather than a continuation because of the explosiveness of its development and the disruptiveness of its technologies. According to Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum and author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the new age is differentiated by the speed of technological breakthroughs, the pervasiveness of scope and the tremendous impact of new systems.

The first industrial revolution, in the 18th and 19th centuries, involved a change from mostly agrarian societies to greater industrialization as a consequence of the steam engine and other technological developments. The next technological age, the second industrial revolution, was driven by electricity and involved expansion of industries and mass production as well as technological advances.

The World Economic Forum provides a brief presentation about the fourth industrial revolution:

Continue Reading About fourth industrial revolution

Margaret Rouse asks:

Has your organization been impacted by digital disruption?

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What is fourth industrial revolution? - Definition from WhatIs.com

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The fourth industrial revolution is the current and developing environment in which disruptive technologies and trends such as the Internet of Things ( IoT), robotics, virtual reality ( VR) and artificial intelligence ( AI) are changing the way we live and work.

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The rise of technology has led to a disruption in the way we work and live. The Digital Era has changed the way we do things. This change is not just limited to the tools we use; it also affects every Malaysian, and by extension, the entire nation.

As the digital economy grows, Malaysia must be prepared to embrace the shift. As such, we have formed collaborations between the government, industry players, educational institutes and many other stakeholders.

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Digital Entrepreneurship Innovation | MDEC

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The rise of technology has led to a disruption in the way we work and live. The Digital Era has changed the way we do things. This change is not just limited to the tools we use; it also affects every Malaysian, and by extension, the entire nation.

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MAST Application can contribute into healthcare