Towards a flexible innovation process model assuring quality and customer needs

Successful innovation projects require an adequate innovation management capability in organisations. This means a sufficiently rigorous, continuous, and goal-oriented management of innovation processes. The literature research demonstrates that an integrated innovation methodology requires highly qualitative processes that are both flexible and customer-specific in their design. This work focuses on the FuGle® innovation process model, which is applied at the Industrial Engineering Department of Stellenbosch University. The enhanced FuGle® innovation process model presents flexible processes that are supported by methods and techniques that guide the user to drive innovation projects. This paper presents an innovation approach that enables organisations proactively to manage customer needs and trends. Thus the enhanced FuGle® innovation process model aims to turn an innovation project into a marketable product.