IIC Testbeds – A Blueprint for Delivering Innovation and Ecosystems
and change with the goal of maintaining and gaining competitive advantage. However, the reality
is that it is difficult for organizations to be responsive and adaptive to changing markets and
trends. Successfully innovative organizations have many ingredients but a common feature is a
culture of cross-functional collaboration and willingness to engage in external partnerships
around new and emerging domains. The availability of well-structured collaborative
environments such as the IIC testbeds will enable easy participation in a well-defined process
where dramatic business transformations can be revealed and understood.
3.2
Managing Innovation Risk
3.2.1
RESEARCH
An often-held perception about innovation is that it is a result or output of a R&D Department
that is well staffed with key expertise and skills. The reality is that the financial resources and key
skills to sustain a research facility or programme is substantial and may be out of reach for many
organizations. The creation of a shared research environment for like-minded partners to
collaborate enables each participant to bring their own expertise and technologies to drive the
innovation and discovery process. The testbeds will not only support innovation by enabling
participants to understand the technical potential but also facilitate the ability to create and
capture value of the emergent solutions. Additionally, the outputs can be shared back into the
wider IIC forums to help drive and strengthen the overall output for everyone.
3.2.2
RISK MITIGATION
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Thomas A. Edison
The IIC testbeds are an effective and agile way for organizations to de-risk the decision-making
process when evaluating potential Industrial IoT solutions, products & services. Timely feedback
on assumptions and designs will be key to shortening the feedback loop and will enable
companies to develop processes that will shorten time-to-market and mitigate potential
weaknesses and risks. For mission critical systems, the real-world environment of the IICapproved INFINITE testbed (INFINITE) provides a wide range of scenarios that reflect the actual
conditions that are encountered in the real world. The testbed also permits the staging of
exceptional scenarios to enable testing of disaster type situations and their recovery. We have
found that the knowledge gained to date can be leveraged by applications requiring similar levels
of low-latency, high availability and resilience.
IIC Journal of Innovation
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