Abstract:

Creative competences in today’s day and age is of utmost importance as new products development has to assimilate a number of new technologies and manufacturing processes. Therefore the task of the idea generation process is to leverage multiple aspects like technology, manufacturing processes, trends, user needs, socio- cultural influence etc., to bring out new and unexplored out-of-the-box ideas.

Hence the idea generation process is a critical step in coming up with new product ideas. Thus to study this complex phenomena the potential of using analogies as triggers in the idea generation process is being investigated. Use of analogies as a creative tool is known to bridge multiple domains and develop new associations leading to completely new ideas. Chakravarthy (2003) in his research on the collaborative model for innovation states, ‘idea generation needs different levels of creative inputs for the evolutionary idea generation process’ where the first step is the creation and development of new and wild ideas by using various methods of creativity using inputs from the collaborative network, which helps in assimilating diverse knowledge and rich experience scattered across the enterprise and outside, resulting in valuable inputs right at the ideation phase of new product design. The use of the synectics method to concretize the ideas towards product innovation is prevalent in his work.

Drawing from investigations and studies done on the phenomena of idea generation in the field of psychology, philosophy, physiology, sociology, management etc. and reviewing existing literature on idea generation and its theories in product design brings forth possibilities of developing a conceptual framework to argue why certain phenomena arise and influence design idea generation. In the studies of the various methods of idea generation the use analogy as an essential component seems prevalent. Most extensive use of analogy is found in the Synectics method. By understanding the associative and reflective practice of idea generation the relationship with analogy leading to innovation can be investigated. As stated by Nigel Cross (2006) in his study that it is important for designers to develop methodologies from design research to appropriate design practices. This can Further help development of knowledge, based on practice and evolve a distinct body of knowledge that can distinguish designers from other professionals.

The study will be on idea generation process and structure from the perspective of analogical stimulation. It is on an analogical trigger approach that intends to stimulate people by means of associative cross-bridging of thoughts imaginatively, to support generating more innovative ideas, and also to increase the variety of their ideas. The base will stem from cognitive theories- design cognition to develop a framework, by looking at influences and constraints that underlie creative ideation. Also look into the paradigms of idea discovery (processing), identify them and what shift can be made.

The methodology to be applied will be a mixed method, primary data collection will be from experiments and case studies, to create a taxonomy of the ideas generated and analogy used, so as to qualitatively analyze the depth, breadth, fluency and newness of the ideas. Then from the factor analysis further quantify, and identify meaningful correlations to build the research on. Thus a constructive framework can facilitate the prerequisites of the idea generation phase of product development.