Nottingham Spirk Celebrates 40 Years of Innovation In August 1972, two award-winning graduates from the Cleveland Institute of Art decided to pool their talents and prize money and open a new design firm. Their timing was less than auspicious as the country soon slipped into the 1973-1975 recession. They had a talent for seeing the world a bit differently, though. And they used that talent to develop inventive new products that opened up new markets and revenue streams for their clients. More » |
Behind the Scenes at Nottingham Spirk: Bringing Concepts to Life As anyone who has ever innovated knows, identifying a great concept is only half the battle. Testing and refinement are vital for bringing that concept to life and transforming it into a viable product. This is one phase where the benefits of our all-inclusive Innovation Center become readily apparent. Because the entire innovation lifecycle occurs in one building – with designers, engineers and fabrication experts all in close proximity – we're able to prototype, test, refine and re-prototype in record time. During development of CardioInsight's ECVue cardiac mapping garment, we produced and tested a series of 10 evolutionary prototypes in a span of just 6 weeks. More » |
Made In America There's been a lot of discussion recently about a resurgence in US manufacturing. Terms like "onshoring" and "insourcing" have been introduced to describe the return of domestic manufacturing from offshore locations like China. Consulting firms like Booz & Co., The Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company's McKinsey Global Institute have issued papers analyzing the trends and debating the possibility. Publications from Forbes and Harvard Business Review to the Huffington Post have weighed in. And the President featured the idea prominently in this year's State of the Union address before holding an "Insourcing American Jobs" forum. What's our perspective? More » |